Family Ties

We are bound to our families with ties of love, tears, and history. In Family Ties, bestselling author Lois Wyse explores with wit and insight both the visible and the invisible relationships that connect the generations.
From stories of marriages (both old and new), babies (both natural-born and adopted), siblings, grand-parents, and those friends who are loved like family, Wyse has woven a collection that will touch the hearts of all readers.
You will meet a father who never knew he had a daughter, a high-powered career woman who went to China in order to become a mother, a little girl who finds a husband for her widowed mother (and a father for herself), a grandmother who pulls her entire family together to welcome a long-lost grandchild -- and, between the lines, stories of the love and understanding that make all families stronger.
Here, too, is Lois Wyse's own story of a month she spent in southern France with fifteen members of her amalgamated family: adult children and stepchildren, in-laws, and grandchildren, hailing from different cities. With candor and humor, she tells how three generations of one family grew closer and came to understand their relationships in ways that will always color and strengthen their lives.
Family Ties celebrates the bonds that enrich our own families. Delightful and endlessly true, this is a perfect book for everyone from mothers and fathers to grandchildren, stepdaughters, sons-in-law, and second cousins once removed -- all of us for whom family is the core of life.

Contents

Introduction

PART ONE The Children's Hour

First Words

Family Stories

The Gifted Child

The Awful Tooth

The Diplomat

Sister Act

Sisters Again

Small-Town Boy

The Children Deserve a Good Life

Her Father's Daughter

Generations of Love

Family Dinner

PART TWO Mom's the Word

Mother Load

The New, Improved Mother

Pioneer Mother

I Remember Your Mother

The Popcorn Report

What Do We Tell the Children?

Not a Word About This, Mother

Occupation: Mother

Are You Cheryl Doe?

Design for Living

PART THREE The Legacy of Love

The Family

Bonjour, Lolo

Welcome to Paradise

Trouble in Paradise

Cousin Cuisine

Shopping Italian-Style

French Lights

The Gentleman Caller

Isn't France a Topless Country?

The Family at Play

Acknowledgments