Cliff Elliott thought he had endured the worst thing a parent could endure when his nine year old daughter was kidnapped, but he was wrong. The circumstances that led to her return were far worse than anything he could have imagined. Now Cliff, a man who rarely uttered a cross word, a man whose temperament and nature were as gentle as any man’s could be, had his life thrown irreparably out of balance. Left with no other choice, Cliff set out not for revenge, but for justice; a justice he hoped would restore the balance that was now absent from his life. His pursuit of this balance thrust him deep into a world that he had never experienced before; a world to which he was indeed a stranger. The price to be paid to regain his balance though, was much higher than he ever imagined it would be. In fact, Cliff almost paid the ultimate price as he was forced into the world of those who took his daughter. So take a walk in another man’s shoes and try to imagine what you would do if you were faced with, ‘A Critical Loss of Balance’.
Why do I write...
In the summer of nineteen sixty six, my father's company
transferred him to the city of Cork in Ireland. Shortly after
we settled in, we took a family trip to an Irish landmark;
Blarney Castle. Legend has it that anyone
who kisses the famous Blarney Stone will be blessed
with 'the gift of more eloquent speech'.
Being the good parents they were, and knowing dad's
assignment in Ireland was only a temporary one, I was drug
to the top of Blarney Castle and required to kiss the
fabled stone. I reluctantly did so, partly out of curiosity,
but mostly to appease my parents.
Ever since then words have come quite easily for me. I'm not
saying that it had anything to do with kissing that cold,
gray stone, though I'm not saying it didn't either. In
retrospect I believe I had the best parents in the world.
And although they've both left this earth, I can't think of
a thing about my childhood that I'd change, even being
dangled by my feet some ninety feet above the Irish countryside.
