Adventure. Divorce. Widow. Cancer. Depression. To an outsider, Valerie Barlow's life has all the makings of a TV movie.
Love. Loss. Hardship. Courage. To her friends and family, Valerie Barlow's incredible journey is only equaled by her will to live.
Spanning two continents and the immense terrain of the human heart, Are You Alive? is the tragic, yet highly inspirational story of an adventurous Hong Kong woman turned Yankee. An English teacher in Hong Kong, Valerie left her precious students and homeland for America in a quest for love.
Love may have brought Valerie to America, but fate wasn't initially kind as her marriage dissolved. Fate interjected again, only this time in Valerie's favor, as she met the true love of her life, Alan. The couple moved to New York and married in 2001. Life seemed to have worked out for Valerie, but fate wasn't done with her yet.
On September 5, 2001, Valerie and Alan were on their honeymoon across California when they collided with a semi truck near Visalia, CA. Valerie suffered a broken arm and leg, but Alan died the next day. As Valerie recovered in the hospital, Alan's father, John, was killed on September 11, 2001, when Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, PA. Seven months later, Valerie was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Deep depression soon followed, which pushed her to the brink...
More than a story of heartbreak and despair, Are You Alive? is Valerie's journey of recovery and hope. Candid, but never self-pitying, Valerie is a woman struggling with what life has given her, and winning.
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