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This past weekend I spoke at the Italian Center in Sacramento California. I was very excited as I was going to present my story to people that most likely shared a similar story with me.  It was a great weekend; I got to see old friends, and make new ones, but also was surprised to find a lost relative. As I promoted through Face-book, I was introduced to another cousin from the Sacramento area. So during the event, she came and we got to meet! She is actually married to my grandfather’s brother’s grandson. It can get confusing but it was so much fun meeting a relative of my fathers as I presented his story!

What humbled me at the event was not just discovering a relative from my father’s bloodline, but discovering many other relatives from the heart. I had never realized how many people around me could relate to my own journey as I tried to learn more about my parents’ stories. How many of them didn’t realize, just as I didn’t before, how important it is to record our family stories and our own…

I was truly inspired more than ever to keep my quest alive as I venture deeper in helping others tell their story through I Have Something To Say Press, and keep sharing my journey with my own family stories by publishing book two: Emerging From Rubble (coming out at the end of the year or beginning of 2013), as well as speaking aloud about my journey.

I am grateful to have met each one of the people that came to the event at the Italian Center in Sacramento, and am honored to have learned a little of their stories as they spoke with me, because as matter of fact we are all long lost relatives.

Susan Violante with her found cousin and her friend.                                              Susan Violante the Italian Center Executive Director.