Dear Rachel,
I've been feeling very despondent of late, and finding it so difficult to connect with one of my adult children, among other life changes and fears. I picked up your book and it has been such an inspiration to me. Perhaps my struggles are a blessing. Maybe I can live up to them.

Love,
Mary

Thank you for two wonderful books.
I keep them near my bed and every day I read a few pages.
Your books remind me to put the race of life aside and to enjoy the little things in life. They remind me to hope for the best and not be afraid from all the bad things.
I have a sick sister. She is in pain and I wanted to ask if there is someone in Israel that can help her in your ways.

and again - thank you.
Einat

Dear Rachel,
again and again i take your books into my hands and find back to life again. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your warm wisdom. With your help i managed walking through a "deep and dark valley"! With your support i found myself. May God´s light shine on your path!
Love from Austria

I wish I could have attended the CME at the beginning of this month, but I missed it. Is Dr. Remen offering any other courses or talks?

Dear Rachael, what can I say that has not been said about your wonderful book My Grandfather's Blessings? It touched my soul and my heart wept tears of both sadness & joy. It is the most beautiful book I have ever read. You are truly a blessing to me and I am so glad your book found me. It has brought light into my life when I have felt low. It is so moving, and, in the nicest possible way, I envy you your wonderful Grandfather.
May your life be forever blessed as you have blessed others with your wonderful words.
Thank you again & again.
with respect & love, Linda

Dear Rachel Naomi Remen,
Many years ago I was given a copy of an article you wrote called "In the Service of Life". Before your precious stories appeared in books the words you shared in that article began to chip away at what I believed 'helping' was. I thought at the time, and still think when I forget, that 'help' was what I need when life becomes too much. Perhaps that belief is what has perpetuated my perfectionism and my forgetfulness. Today, I have read both your books of story, and with the many years of loss and healing, I find a growing comfort in knowing that IF A THING IS BROKEN ... it may need to be fixed. If however when I am in the process of yet one more lesson in humanness, I hear your words and remember to seek a way to serve myself or someone in the same canoe.
I have written a post to a project called Heroes of Healing. The link to that post is here.
It is a post describing your work and your work's effects on my life. I wrote on that post, “before there were bloggers there was Rachel Naomi Remen.”
Thank-you. Mokihana Calizar

I first came across you in a specials bin at a bookshop. As I read the kitchen table)book, I kept thinking of my friend's son who is a young doctor at our local hospital. Now, Ben carries the book with him and I have bought another plus your grandfather's book which I have happily paid full price for. Yesterday, I gave one to my friend so she can read bits to her mother who is losing her independence and getting cranky with everybody and everything. One request. Could you tell us how to pronounce the Hebrew name your Grandfather called you? Thankyou.

Oi. Sou estudante do curso de graduação de enfermagem, estou no teceiro ano, e estou lendo o livro O PACIENTE COMO SER HUMANO, devido uma das docentes ter pedido um trabalho para realizar uma resenha crítica, e gostaria se for possível, se pudesse me enviar via e-mail, algumas informações referentes a autora (credenciais da autora ), como aonde se formou, aonde nasceu e etc. Desde já ficarei muito obrigado.

Thank you for helping me see that life does go on after we lose a loved one. My husband of 40 years died May 12, 2007 in a matter of 36 hours, I miss him terribly but you have shown me how I can become whole and share my life more fully with my children, co-workers and others and move on. My youngest daughter, about to turn 25 brought me your book to see and I immediately purchased my own copy which I will go back to when I need strength and comfort. Kitchen Table Wisdom has opened my eyes to my self and what I can feel and not dread being alone for years to come. I might even become a different person than who I was being a wife and mother for so long.
Rachel, again thank you so much, after a while I will most likely go and purchase other works by you. God bless you and your work to so many.

Dear Dr. Remen,

I met you at a booksigning at Kepler's in Menlo Park several years ago. You signed a copy of "My Grandfather's Blessings" for my father, for me, and one for my friend whose son had died in a frat hazing, leaving her with a screaming level of pain she simply could not cope with. He had survived childhood cancer, and to die like this? I knew your story of the mother who also had lost her freshman son would be a comfort to her--that there was someone else out there, whether she knew them or not, that knew what that pain was like, someone who had reacted like she did. I told you that I had prayed to know what to do, and had felt I should give her a copy of your book; I had then prayed again to know, and I hesitated a moment, and then you and I said in unison, "When."

Because the timing on things changes the outcomes so much, and we cannot know of ourselves. I was so grateful that you instantly understood. I still am.

I want you to know I felt an answer to that question later, and I gave it to her the following Mother's Day. It proved to be very much the right day, and I have visited her every Mother's Day since then, remembering her son and honoring her love and her motherhood.

It was eight years ago this month that he died. Her daughters have now grown and married and given her two grandsons, both of them with their uncle's name as part of theirs. And my friend has begun, at long last, to find a growing sense of healing and peace in her life. It's been good to see. The pain is still there, but now she can feel the love that offers her balance. And for all this time, she has known that she is not alone. She can reach out to me, because I was willing to go through it with her. And your book did so much to help her work to find her own way through--and it showed me how much I needed to offer my presence.

I am glad to discover this guestbook: I had wanted you to know she did get that book. I had wanted you to know it did help. I had wanted to tell you, most of all: thank you for being one of the great peacemakers out there in this world. You have made such a huge difference to so many in so many ways, more than you could possibly know in this life; the ripples extend so very far. And I am intensely grateful to you for it.

I have had your book on my bedside table for six years now. Your words help me both professionally as a school counselor teaching children how to embrace life and personally as someone who had lived with IBD for more than twenty years. Thank you for helping me listen to my body's wisdom and others with an open heart.

Dear Naomi,

I feel so gifted by your book. Moved to tears by some stories, smiling from ear to ear with others, I am feeling so grateful to you for the work you do, and for your gift for expressing yourself through the art of writing. I am feeling lifted and changed by reading "Kitchen Table Wisdom", and feel a deeper commitment to being the healer I am, professionally and as a human "angel" among a world of healing angels.

With love, Susan

Dear Naomi,

I'm currently re-reading Kitchen Table Wisdom (I read two or three chapters every morning while in the sauna; perfect). Such a wonderful book. I first read it shortly after a breast cancer diagnosis three years ago, and loved it. But I find it even more touching and helpful now than I did then. I suspect it's a book that I'll re-read on a regular basis. Thanks, and all my best wishes to you.

thANK YOU SO FOR YOUR BEAUTIFUL BOOK......I BECAME A WIDOW AT 42...RAISED TRHEE BEAUTIFUL CHIDREN...I AM NOW SADDENED WITH AN EMPY NEST AND FINDING MEANING IN MY LIFE..AN ATTEMPT AT LOVE AFTER MANY YEARS HAS ENDED AND I FIND MYSELF SO SAD..I FINISHED YOUR BOOK THIS MORNING..MY TEARS HAVE STOPPED...IM COUNTING MY BLESSINGS AND HAVE FOUND SUCH COMFORT IN THE STORIES YOU SHARED....THANK YOU...I SO WISH YOU GOOD HEALTH AND THE COMFORT OF KNOWING YOU HAVE HELPED OTHERS SO..I AM FORWARDING YOUR BOOKS TO MY DAUGHTER..A 2ND YEAR RESIDENT IN ROCHESTER NY..

I was the psychologist and delete therapist at Long Beach Memorial Cancer Insdeleteute. We came to Commonweal one weekend when the Simontons were there and I roomed with Stephanie. I shall never forget the unique and gratifying events and exercises. I had a very debilitating stroke about 24 months after that and have , Thank G-d, regained much of my interpersonal and thinking skills.

Dear Dr. Remen,

Thank you for Kitchen Table Wisdom. Being a Therapist in Private Pactice is isolating. Your wise book is like a shared comforting conversation with a old friend and sister: one who has fought many of the same, but different, battles.

I have recommended this book to an old friend battling cancer. I do not know if he has already read it, but if so another read seems appropriate and a first read more so.

I hope I have an opprotunity to hear you/ meet you.

Thank you and Blessings.

In reading your books I have been helped in healing from surgery. Your books have helped quell my fears and redirected my purpose for the second half of my life. I was thrilled you taught at UCSF, as I am the great niece of Dr. Anne E. Hill who was a professor of Public Health Nursing there, as well.
I wonder why the audio on both your books is not on CD format yet? Thank you for the shared light and peace you bring.

Dear Ms. Remen,
I am trying to contact you regarding the possibility of having you has a keynote speaker at our annual Trustee Leadership Conference in Minneapolis, Minn. on September 19. We have heard such wonderful things about you and your books. We are the Benedictine Health System and we are a not-for-profit health care organization sponsored by the Sisters of the St. Scholastica Monastery. I can tell you more about our organization perhaps over the phone. I am the planner of this conference and our president and prioress have asked me to try to contact you. Can you possibly contact me at 218.786.2381. Thank you, 'Jan Barrett, Manager of Organizational Learning.

I've just finished Kitchen Table Wisdom. It is very inspiring. I had to quit working as a therapist in my original country (Brazil) 10 years ago when my husband and I decided to move to the US. Raising two children, now adolescents and moving 6 times to 3 states and overseas and back ever since, I never had a chance to get back to work helping people as I used to do. Recently I looked for help myself, trying to figure out what to do to fulfill this emptiness that the many years of instability had generated. While working on that, a friend, who works as a coach, recommended your book. I'm inspired by your stories, by the way you look at things, by how you read the facts and specially by how you listen. Even though I was reading, it felt like I was there listening with you and listening to you, hoping to find the right questions I should be asking.

Thanks for sharing your wholeness.

now i just reading kitchen table wisdom. i am very impressed to see this, Keep moving with your work.
nandy143

I've found a few places online that have excerpts from youf "Kitchen Table Wisdom" book. Rev. Morgan is quoting you in our monthly newsletter and wanted to use "No Statute of Limitations." I was wondering was it in format that I could use without retyping the entire article?
Thanks for your time and consideration of this request.
Lisa Marsh

Thank you so much for Kitchen Table Wisdom. It was recommended to me by a friend, as I've just been diagnosed with Crohn's, but it helped me in so many ways.

My mother died eight years ago, with a grace I can still only marvel at. I still miss her desperately. Your contemplations of mystery are comforting.

Just wanted to let you know that I've read and reread your books many times, and have shared parts of them with others in need of comfort. I've read them so many times I know many of the stories by heart, because they've touched my heart. Thank you.

words cannot express how wonderful I found Kitchen Table Wisdom.The pages shimmered gently as each story connected with my soul.There is something trully wonderful about opening our hearts to others, and you,Rachel, have unlocked mine. Thankyou darling.At the risk of sounding totally soppy I send you the hugest hug and all my love.For all reading this I send my love to you too.Bless you.

Just wanted to tell you how much I love your book-my grandfathers blessings and you and your dear grandfather z"l and your dear mother and all the dear people you shared your experience with .
thank you and G-d bless you