ABSTRACT
Writing this book has been a long journey for me, both personally and professionally. It began in May 1999, a month after my mother died, and it is now August 2003. In that time, much has happened in my family. Both my daughters were married, as was a niece. Nephews and nieces had children. And just three weeks ago, most of our extended family had a family gathering in our ancestral village of Longo, Albania (that part of Albania is populated by ethnic Greeks and borders Greece). We came together from Greece, the United States and Albania. The memory and the emotions are very much with me as I write this.
