Hello and thank you!

Hello and thank you!
Thursday June 12, 2008

Dear Alice Miller,

I am writing this letter with tears and a joyous heart, and such humble gratitude that I am literate.

I want to thank you for the books you wrote and that I read many years ago.

Your work made it possible for me to better face the facts of my childhood and vow to raise my children differently. My only child, I think she would join me in thanking you as well. She will be finishing her last year at College. I am so incredibly proud of her.

It has been a long journey through a painful marriage, custody battle, and divorce, but it is now 11 years since I summoned up the courage to leave my marriage. My daughter has done remarkably well, I think, due to the fact that we had established a strong mother/daughter bond which helped her to get through two and one half years of foster care in five different foster homes beginning when she was 11. (Despite being granted custody, her father put her in them, rather than caring for her himself). He has since retired on a psychiatric disability.

There is much truth in the books you’ve written, and I count them as some of the most important that I have ever read. I strongly believe that doing my best to practice your philosophy is the main reason that my daughter and I survived, and actually thrived, during the past several years. I plan to re-read those books again, and read those I have never read.

Your work has been instrumental in developing my own philosophy about what it means to be human, and I will be citing your work in my dissertation, which I am finally finishing in the next few months. There is also something about writing a dissertation that makes a person think more about the past and the events that have influenced us.

I realize that you probably get thousands of letters thanking you for your work. It must be a great feeling to know that the work you have done is so important and so deeply appreciated. It changes lives.

Thank you for changing mine and my daughter’s.

D. W.

AM: Thank you for your letter, I am glad that my books helped you and your daughter so much. But it was above all YOU who had the courage to read, to understand, and to use them. Congratulations.