Published to strong reviews and major media attention, this heartfelt and inspirational rags–to–riches memoir by the highly regarded CEO of Parade Publications tells the emotional story of how he came to terms with an identity and a family that he never knew he had until he reached middle age.

Meant To Be begins when Anderson, a 21–year–old Marine returns from service to say goodbye to his dying father and tries to find the answer to a question that has inexplicably haunted him from his earliest years: Was the alcoholic, abusive man who has so tormented him in his childhood his real father? Shockingly, the answer turns out to be "No." Unbeknown to him, at least until that point, his mother, a German Protestant, fell in love during World War II with a Russian Jew and bore his child. Anderson learns this information as a young man but he and his mother keep this secret for another 35 years, until the day Anderson – now an unusually successful publishing executive – meets an unknown brother who, it turns out, has lived a nearly parallel life. Meant To Be is a love story, a journey of self–discovery and spirituality, and a provocative challenge to common notions about the role of heredity in our lives.

I immediately recognized the blue suit. He had bought it years before from Mr. Freeman, a salesman who sold clothes and shoes door-to-door in our old neighborhood. This suit -- the only one he owned -- had seen some weddings and retirement dinners in its time, but mainly it had been worn to funerals. And now it had arrived at its last funeral: his.

The morticians had carefully dressed him in the old blue suit, a white shirt and a blue tie, then placed his body inside a polished wood casket, arranging his forearms so that his right hand crossed neatly over his left. It was on his face, though, where the craftsmen of the Burr Davis Funeral Home in Mount Vernon, New York, had proved their craft, accomplishing a remarkable feat: The late William Henry Anderson seemed serene -- his eyes closed, his expression neutral, as if he were enjoying a deep and peaceful sleep.

Where is the rage now? I wondered.

A few hours earlier, my brother Bill had given me a copy of the obituary that had appeared that day, February 7, 1966, in the local newspaper, the Daily Argus:

William H. (Whitey) Anderson Sr., 56, a retired troubleshooter for Con Edison, died yesterday at the U.S. Veterans Hospital in the Bronx. Mr. Anderson, son of the late Henry W. and Edith (Heikkela) Anderson, was born April 23, 1909, in New Rochelle. A Mount Vernon resident for 35 years, he was a volunteer fireman in Engine 2 and company captain for 14 years. He was a World War II veteran. Surviving are his wife, Ethel (Crolly) Anderson; two sons, William H. Anderson Jr. of Mount Vernon and Sgt. Walter H. Anderson, a U.S. Marine; a daughter, Mrs. Carol Gennimi of Yorktown Heights; a sister, Mrs. Dhyne Seacord of Elmhurst, L.I.; and five grandchildren.

I remembered his boast: "When I go, they'll all be there!" And they were. The funeral parlor was filled. Dozens of firemen who knew him from his days as a volunteer filled the rear rows. Former co-workers from Con Edison, relatives and family friends from Mount Vernon, Saratoga, New Jersey and Long Island had found seats or queued in the side aisles.

My sister, Carol, was seated in the front row next to my mother. My brother, who had been an Engine 2 volunteer himself but was now a paid firefighter, finished greeting his fellow firemen, then joined me standing in the rear.

"I don't see any of the Cheatham brothers," I told Bill. "Aren't they coming?"

From the age of five until I quit high school at sixteen to enlist in the Marines, we had lived in a tenement on the corner of Eleventh Avenue and Third Street -- directly across from Cheatham Brothers Moving and Storage Company.

"No," Bill said. "The Cheathams won't be coming. Out of respect. Mom told me they called her."

Strange, I thought, that my brother didn't say the words "colored" or "Negro" or "black." He knew that his father's best friends, his favorite drinking buddies, were absent because of their race, that they must have decided their presence would cause discomfort or be unwelcome.

I guess I was still mulling this contradiction after the eulogy began, because the minister was well into it before I realized that I didn't recognize the man whose virtues he was praising: "Loved and loving"? How about "feared"? "Kind"? How about "rough"? "Respect for the Scriptures"? Where did that come from?

"Who the hell is he talking about?" my brother whispered. "The old man would not go for this."

"Amen," I said.

Then my mother -- to the genuine surprise of my brother, my sister, me and probably everyone else in the room who knew her well -- began crying hysterically, pleading, "Willie, take me with you!" Before we left the parlor, my sister, brother and I did our best to...

Walter Anderson has been editor of Parade since June 1980. He is a member of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Sciences, and he serves on the boards of Literacy Volunteers of America, the National Center for Family Literacy, the National Dropout Prevention Fund, Very Special Arts, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and PBS.

He received a 1994 Hortio Alger Award, for which he was nominated by the late Norman Vincent Peale, and the Jewish National Fund's Tree of Life Award, which he received from Elie Wiesel. He lives in White Plains, New York, with his wife Loretta. They have two children.