I dedicate this book:

To all the loving, courageous people we have met whose lives have been healed by their disease. You are all winners. Thank you for being my teachers.

To my younger sister, Dossie. It was she who first taught me about responsibility and how to deal with adversity as we trudged the streets of Brooklyn to and from P.S. 226. And to her husband, Len, and children, Sarah, David, Cynthia and Daniel.

To Beth Rashbaum, editor and writer, for her work and perseverance. To Carol Cohen, my editor at Harper & Row, and to my agent, Victoria Pryor, for their continued support. (They now know how hard it is to be a scrub nurse in the o.r.)

To Julie Foley and Lucille Ranciato, who have sat by me and guided me.

To all my exceptional associates, friends, co-workers and patients.

To all of the ECaP staff and board.

And to those who most of all continue to accept, love and forgive me—my parents, Si and Rose, my wife, Bobbie, and our children, Jon, Jeff, Stephen, Carolyn and Keith, and Bobbie’s parents, Merle and Ado.

I also want to acknowledge the work and words of my friend Dr. Karl Menninger, who knew it all decades ago, as shown by his dedication in Man Against Himself (1938):

To those who would use intelligence in the battle against death—to strengthen the will to live against the wish to die, and to replace with love the blind compulsion to give hostages to hatred as the price of living

Peace, love and healing to you all.

—BERNIE SIEGEL