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When I was a toddler, my Mom and I treated each day like Christmas! Just like in that modern-day semi-satirical opera, Nixon in China? That was my mom’s credo in my mind - find the gifts each day had to offer - and gleefully unwrap them.

I was autistic, so go figure.

But Mom believed the American Dream, and so I, in my turn, fully gobbled it up and digested it in my childhood. And to this day it sits heavily in my craw. Some things you hate to love - and love to hate.

And so, naturally, as a teen faced by adulthood, I imploded. There was no dream left to nourish my soul.

But when I reached the age of 26, I read this book!

***

I was sitting on the banks of the Rideau Canal, in a folded plastic chair I toted over from my apartment on Somerset Street in the warm Fall of 1976, and I saw the truth.

Frankl said you had to find Meaning within your Fractured Soul - in medias res - at the epicentre of this howling Hurricane of the Chaos of Modern Life.

So that, in turn became my credo.

And by Christmas I had finally found my soulmate�

It will rebuild your life from scratch.

***

Just as it rebuilt MINE.

WHEN YOU WALK THROUGH A STORM,
HOLD YOUR HEAD UP HIGH
AND DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK.

AT THE END OF THE STORM
THERE’S A GOLDEN SUN
WITH THE SWEET SILVER SONG OF A LARK!

WALK ON THROUGH THE WIND -
WALK ON THROUGH THE RAIN -
THOUGH YOUR DREAMS BE TRASHED AND TORN�

WALK ON, WALK ON
WITH HOPE IN YOUR HEART:
AND YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE.

Five GLOWING Stars, Mister Frankl.