Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven begins not on the thirty-ninth floor of the North Tower, but years earlier — with a frightened left-handed boy struggling to fit into a Catholic school classroom. It winds through a difficult childhood, military and boarding school, the demanding discipline of Marine Corps boot camp, the deserts of Twentynine Palms, and countless moments that seemed ordinary when they occurred.

Only in hindsight do those moments reveal themselves for what they truly were. Steps. One after another. Preparing him for a climb he never imagined he would have to make.

Most readers will never descend thirty-nine flights of stairs inside a burning skyscraper. But every reader has climbed another kind of staircase — illness, loss, failure, the sudden realization that life has divided itself into before and after. This memoir is for them.