On a late August evening, my daughter’s Cape Cod bedroom was consumed by fire.  Fortunately the fire was contained to her room, there was no harm to humans or canines, but she lost all her belongings, or so we thought.  Many days after this incident my daughter and her husband were going through their room one more time in order to complete a list of lost items for the insurance company.  There nestled among the ashes was a copy of He Wanted the Moon.  The face of the book was turned upwards, the words Moon and Baird were clearly visible along with my father’s eye peering over the top of the cover.  It was almost as if my father was watching out for his granddaughter, assuring her that everything would be alright. 

The discovery of He Wanted The Moon in my daughter’s fire ravaged room is another example of survival, a theme that runs through our book.  My father endured multiple harsh treatments in mental hospitals but he wrote about them in his manuscript. Over the years the manuscript was somehow preserved against all odds, and I was able to discover it and have it published. Now his words have resisted a fire in his granddaughter’s room.  My father wanted to help break the silence regarding mental illness, thus reduce the stigma of this disease. His story was meant to be told.