Being adopted can be unsettling or awkward. It can be a mystery that you want to unravel. Or it can just be part of your DNA. Having a handicapped child can be terrifying, especially during a time when there wasn't a lot of information to search for. For me, it was a matter of gut-inspired decisions that happened to turn out right. When you combine those two elements, you come up with some thought-provoking and sometimes funny life situations. My mother and I had a complicated relationship, until it wasn't, and the various ways we threaded our way through the years together. And I've written about a turbulent marriage that I didn't understand and yet felt compelled to support, until I couldn't. I've always been good in the art of B.S. and telling a fun story and making it even funnier in hopes of making people laugh. I hope this book inspires you, makes you think, and makes you laugh.

This memoir takes you on a journey with many layers, beginning with growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s,  working through a contentious relationship between a mother and daughter.  It’s about a  family growing together and the often-times confusing and heartbreaking efforts of raising a son with Angelmans Syndrome.  There are detours leading to the discovery of an adoption riddle that will affect this family for life.  And the difficult realization that a family member becomes narcissistic and an alcoholic and how that can change the dynamic of several families.  Nanc has threaded all of these life experiences into a moving and funny tale that will keep you reading until the end, and then want more.

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Nanc never exactly thought of herself as the lucky type, but her childhood was engulfed with angst, unhappiness, friendship, laughter and healthy sprinkle of love. Married in the mid-seventies to her high school sweetheart, the couple were blessed with two sons – one of the boys born with a rare neurodevelopmental condition called Angelman Syndrome. In the early 1990s, guidance and resources for raising a child with special needs was scarce – there was no Google! Over the years, Nanc floated like a small raft in a very confusing ocean, but her journey was submerged with gratitude, humility, humor, and a deep appreciation for the turbulence in one’s life. A stranger recently asked her how she would describe her life at her age, she was quiet for several minutes and replied, “I’m damn lucky!”