The book was Sally's private journal, but friends and family convinced her to publish it. She teamed up with the Medical University of South Carolina's Center on Aging and is donating all book proceeds to the university's research on age-related disease (www.musc.edu/aging/circle.htm). She's also now on the speaking circuit and conducting podcast interviews.
Anyone entering the world of Alzheimer's and dementia would find inspiration in Sally's beautifully written diary, but the book isn't only about living with a relative in mental decline. It's about life's journey, the passage of time and the choices we make -- from how we tackle the daily trials to how we navigate that big lonesome valley.
The message in the bottle is: "We're all on the same journey, you can choose to do it with joy," says Sally. You're going to walk it anyway, so you may as well enjoy it."
It's all the same thing, she says. Life and death, yin and yang, mother to child, child to mother, the circle.
Sally's story is everybody's and the revelations she experienced are both universal and timeless. Revelations, after all, are merely truths waiting to be remembered.
Here's the big one. As she packed up her childhood home and bid a final farewell to all the sights, smells and sounds she treasured, Sally suddenly realized that it wasn't about the house.
"It was about the relationships I was inheriting."
The family, in other words.
The family is what gives our life meaning and makes our nation strong. The family is also what keeps government at a respectful distance -- working for us and not the other way around.
All our political choices should be made in the service of that understanding. That's all. And we've got work to do.