title: The Forever Child: A Tale of Loss and Impossible Dreams
author: B. Bryan Post
description: I can really relate to how Bella feels and acts... and it (helped me) realize I am not alone. --Bethany F. (14)<br /><br />We really appreciate the insight you provide in this very simple, yet powerful story. --Mary and Rolf, Adoptive Parents<br /><br />This moving story and guide speaks clearly to parents. This is a unique and much-needed story. --Emily Jernberg, Ph.D.
zlib_text: Dean Koontz
  
  TICKTOCK
  
  To Gerda
  
  with the promise
  
  of
  
  sand, surf
  
  and a Scootie
  
  of our own
  
  To see what we have never seen,
  
  to be what we have never been,
  
  to shed the chrysalis and fly,
  
  depart the earth, kiss the sky,
  
  to be reborn, be someone new:
  
  is this a dream or is it true?
  
  Can our future be cleanly shorn
  
  from a life to which we're born?
  
  Is each of us a creature free -
  
  or trapped at birth by destiny?
  
  Pity those who believe the latter.
  
  Without freedom, nothing matters.
  
  \- The Book of Counted Sorrows
  
  In the real world
  
  as in dreams
  
  nothing is quite
  
  what it seems.
  
  \- The Book of Counted Sorrows
  
  ONE
  
  Out of a cloudless sky on a windless November day came a sudden shadow that
  swooped across the bright aqua Corvette. Tommy Phan was standing beside the
  car, in pleasantly warm autumn sunshine, holding out his hand to accept the
  keys from Jim Shine, the salesman, when the fleeting shade touched him. He
  heard a brief thrumming like frantic wings. Glancing up, he expected t