Category: Non-fiction/Memoir
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN:9780525950837
Pub. Date: August 2008 (reprint)
Date Read: September 2008
"People often tell me that they can't imagine how it is for me. Mothers especially. They say they can't begin to understand the things I think and feel and do; and that they don't know what, if anything, would pull them through. Perhaps it's impossible to imagine, unless it happens to you."
In the Summer of 1998 Nia and her partner, Alex, are excited about the upcoming birth of their baby. The doctor says that all is well, her mother says life as they know it will never be the same. And, the couple spends hours and evenings imagining what their child-to-be will be like.
Their son is born in August and he is more beautiful than Nia ever imagined. It seems as if their dreams have just become reality.
"It brings a new sense of time, this feeling, a new sense of love, a sense of the miracle. If I could keep one feeling, from the whole of my life, I'd chose this one. This time, when just to be human feels divine, and nothing is wrong."
But in just a couple of hours their world slips into black. Their son, Joe, is wheeled out to intensive care but after observation the doctors feel he'll be fine once he's stabalizied. Nia takes her son home but knows something isn't right anymore. Finally, in January the world as they know it ends. Joe is diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy and the doctors' best advice is to accept fate and be resigned. Joe will never speak, he'll never hear and he'll never see.
Nia won't give up on her son though and begins a long and exhausting process of looking for cures or alternative therapies. She'll try prayers, groups, anything that can offer even a glimmer of hope in the cure of her son. Her family supports her as do her friends but nevertheless it's a struggle and one that costs her, her relationship, her career and at times her emotional health.
With a gentle voice and paragraphs that often resemble poetry stanzas, the author lets the reader see the raw emotions she felt when receiving the diagnosis all the way through when breakthroughs are finally happening for Joe. As bleak as the situation was she was always so full of hope, and a grand love shines through for her child.