Lost Lives

"I'm the child my mother denied," Judy said to me recently in the hospital. My half sister, Judy Sickles, was "Lost" to my sister and I for over 20 years. "Lost Lives" is an account of Judy's life as I saw it-her mental illness, her homelessness, her stormy relationships, her loss of an only child, and her spirited struggle through poverty, family rejection, cancer-and ultimately the hope and reason she gave me to help others.

"Lost Lives" is also a candid account of my mother's struggle through untreated depression, and it profiles her gift as a poet. It proves that untreated mental illness can devastate a person or their family and decrease their potential for a full and rich life.