A heart-rending but uplifting story of the human spirit's ability to prevail.

From the day he is five-years-old and dropped off at his foster home of the next eleven years, Stephen is mentally and physically tortured. No one in the system can help him. No one can tell him if he has a family. No one can tell him why, with obvious African-American features, he has the last name of Klakowicz.

Along the way, a single faint light comes only from a neighbor's small acts of kindness and caring - and a box of books. From one of those books he learns that he has to fight in any way he can - for victory is in the battle. His victory is to excel in school.

Against all odds, the author succeeded. He attended college, graduated, became a successful corporate executive, and married a wonderful woman with whom he established a loving family of his own. Through it, he dug voraciously through records and files and found his history, his birth family - and the ultimate disappointment as some family members embrace him, but others reject him.

Readers won't be the same after reading this powerful story. They will share in the hurts and despair but also in the triumph against daunting obstacles. They will share this story with their family, with their friends, with their neighbors.