It is a story, not one of science, and one that may not be remembered past this one lifetime. It is the story of someone that did not know his destiny, but followed it with unfaltering step, bound to me, not by vows or paper, but in the name of the trust that was the best part of his nature. It is a story of the one that taught me to love, even as he occasionally barfed on my carpet. It is simply the tale of a black Labrador retriever named Barkley. It was the beginning I never anticipated; belief that there were no limits that made tragedy inevitable, a gentle nuzzle that made the walls fall...

It started with a piece of paper--a birth certificate, sent to the author's parents long after her birth. There is much history in that piece of paper. For she was born to an unwed mother in the generation prior to Roe v. Wade, on a warm day in August-a small, painful beginning in which she had been an unwilling participant, yet one that would shape her destiny. She is adopted into a loving home with another child that would become her beloved brother. She finds herself pregnant; she's a teen and a college student, abandoned at the news. The options are obvious, but there is only one decision...