It isn't unusual to see our parents as heroes or to view decisions and events from a different time with detachment from our human condition. My parents certainly told us stories of their lives growing up and we've acquired plenty of knowledge of local, national and world history to understand facts and significance. But writing this book allowed me to appreciate that everything my parents did as children, teenagers, young adults and parents was as real as when I did them years later. And writing this book gave context to time, complexity and thought of the issues, actions and happenings around them.