Breaking the Code: A Father's Secret, a Daughter's Journey, and the Question That Changed Everything

Our parents are our most unexplored mystery.

Whether close or distant to us, we see them as "parent," rarely knowing or thinking about the person that they are outside that role. So few of us get to discover that person inside, even if it may be just a question away.

Like many, Karen grew up with a father who was always there and yet always absent. As a little girl and then an adult, she talked to him, but they never really had a conversation. He'd told her stories of his childhood and of his time in the Navy, but she'd barely listened.

But on his 81st birthday, without explanation, her father placed two weathered notebooks on her lap, with more than 400 pages of letters he'd written to his parents during World War II. The more she read, the more she discovered about the man she never knew and the secret role he played in the war.

Thus began an unintended journey – one taken by a father and daughter who thought they knew each other, a journey of healing and discovery that started with a leap of faith.