No Regrets is the personal story of an "adventure" – the adventure of a shared life between son and father. The story spans decades but culminated in two terrific years of reconciliation and love. This book is a tribute to a man called Abe, a good man, a person of simple tastes, modest aspirations and respectable accomplishments, who dared, at the age of eighty-five, to challenge the very fabric of his life and open his heart in a manner profoundly new. Barry Kaufman has spent his entire life in self examination and exploring human emotions and thoughts, trying to understand relationships and interactions. His life work has been to assist individuals and families cope with severe adversities and traumas. When his own son was diagnosed as irreversibly autistic, functionally retarded and neurologically impaired, he and his wife realized that they had worked diligently, as if toward an unknown goal, to transform themselves before his arrival. All the work with others had been preparing them to meet this challenge successfully.
No Regrets is the deeply moving and triumphant story of the two years that a father and son spent together looking into the face of death. It is a tale of reconciliation during difficult circumstances, and an exploration of the fear that can rip families to shreds and the courage and love that can bring them back together.
Twenty-five years before his father s cancer was diagnosed, Barry ("Bears") Neil Kaufman s young son faced a diagnosis of incurable autism. Bears and his wife Samahria rejected the prognosis and created a program that rescued their son, Raun, from life in an institution, enabling him to become an extraordinarily intelligent, extroverted and gifted teacher and lecturer.
When Bears received a phone call from his father in which Abe Kaufman revealed that he had been diagnosed with invasive cancer, he seized the opportunity not only to help but also to reach out and to heal the decades-long discordant relationship between them. Based on the life-affirming principles that enabled him to assist his own son and the thousands of people who have attended his seminars, he encouraged his father to embrace this illness as an opportunity. Abe s response his sweetness, growth, courage, and wisdom tell us much about the ability to choose inner comfort and peace of mind under any circumstance. A touching and inspiring memoir, No Regrets explores the healing power of love during the final stages of life.
