George Wharton James

On June 11th. my daughter, my grandson, and I flew to Arizona for a family reunion. I had not seen or communicated with my sister, Victoria, in fourteen years. The death of our aunt Lillian, and the vanishing of our older brother, left my younger sister and I the Keepers of the Flame, the bearers of our family tales.

Before we lay eyes on one another after all these years, we talked over a thousand hours on the phone. We compared ourselves to archeologists unearthing our buried lives and souls from under the rubble caused by the terrible war our alcoholic parents waged since we were born. Alas, being able to tell our stories after digging out of Auschwitz, we began to piece back together our history that had been blown asunder.

The funeral of our late and famous sister, Christine, fell on her first sober birthday in AA. I…