In Giving I Connect with Others

When Loss Brings a Gift

Best-selling novelist Isabel Allende discovers the great gift of giving through the loss of her beloved daughter.

By Isabel Allende

I have lived with passion and in a hurry, trying to accomplish too many things. I never had time to think about my beliefs until my twenty-eight-year-old daughter Paula fell ill. She was in a coma for a year, and I took care of her at home until she died in my arms in December of 1992.

This essay is from the book, "This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women," edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman. Copyright ©2006 by This I Believe, Inc.