by Nia Wyn; 197 pages. Subtitle: A Mother's Story of Hope and Healing
"When I hold it in my hands, I still remember the time the world seemed upside down to me, and it was a meditation, a kind of therapy." That's how Welsh writer Wyn describes this book, a chronical of the first seven years in the life of her son, Joe, who has severe cerebral palsy but nowhere near the gloom-and-doom life that was predicted for him. If you still remember those upside-down times or are going through them still, it may represent a comforting meditation for you as well.
- It's an honest, emotional, moving account of parenting a special child.
- The child makes progress that defies experts' pronouncements, which is always gratifying.
- The child's progress isn't so dramatic as to make you mourn your child's lack of same.
- Most special-needs parents will identify with the situations presented here.
- The lyrical style makes for a quick, easy, and enjoyable read.
- The book is not a how-to, but how-it-felt, so you won't find many details on CP or treatments.
- No resources suggested in the text or listed at the back, as some memoirs do.
- Sometimes easy to lose track of names and relationships and places; you just have to roll with it.
- Year One
- Year Two
- Year Three
- Year Four
- Year Five
- Year Six
- Year Seven
- Epilogue
The basic storyline of this mother's tale isn't so unusual -- parents receive devastating diagnosis, fight back with every possible therapy, child makes slow progress as parents' relationship deteriorates, school issues arise and are battled, mother finally finds peace with her child as he is -- but the telling of it is more literary and lyrical than most. Wyn describes it as her journal of the first seven years of her son Joe's life, and as such it's more a record of feelings and emotions than of chronological events.
Joe is diagnosed as an infant with severe cerebral palsy, and so begins the parade of specialists assuring Wyn that he'll never know her, never see, never walk, never be anything but a pathetic burden. She refuses to accept that, and embarks on a quest for a miracle cure that includes oxygen tanks, massage, patterning, healers, crystals, trips to the Holy Land and to Lourdes, special suits and walkers, and anything else that offers a glimmer of hope. In the end, though, what seems to make the most difference is a mother's unwavering love, commitment, and determination to prove the doomsayers wrong.
Because this is a real-life story and not a Movie of the Week, the triumphs are small and slow in coming, but immensely satisfying to a parent who had been written off as overinvolved and underaware of how hopeless things were supposed to be. The book's almost poetic style, with short entries of a sentence or two rather than paragraph on paragraph of text, makes it a good quick read when you need one, and something you can dip back into from time to time for inspiration or commisseration.
The book takes Joe through age seven, leaving off somewhere around 2006. It would be nice to think there's a second volume in the works. This is a family I'd like to keep following.
