A Blog is Born
If you are reading this blog, you probably know that I have a book out this year. What you may not know is that I have been working on that book for nearly four years. This is because my approach to the book was to take my family’s personal story and combine it with insights…
If you are reading this blog, you probably know that I have a book out this year. What you may not know is that I have been working on that book for nearly four years. This is because my approach to the book was to take my family’s personal story and combine it with insights from others. A journalist at heart, I set out to interview parents, adults with a disability, therapists, special education teachers, and nonprofit leaders. The connections were amazing. In some cases I was revisiting old friends that I had met from my decade at the Kids Center for Pediatric Therapies, where Sophia came twice a week for years, and I worked for a decade. My job was to tell the story of the Center’s work and to do that I had to learn how to very succinctly tell the stories of our kids, our parents, our volunteers. It was the favorite part of my job there – and part of what spurred me to write a book. In other cases, I had people across the country introducing me to people that I had never met. It was funny how quickly we bonded, and how many times we would each nod our head in agreement as we revealed our shared experience.
Then as I began to turn notebook after notebook of interview notes into a manuscript, the over 100 interviews that fed the book started to naturally wind down. Yet I still found myself being introduced to new people, talking with them, and hearing even MORE stories. Actually, a week does not go by where I am not being introduced to others. The paths are so different – from a nurse who adopted a beloved patient, to a family raising multiple kids with rare medical challenges, to a parent who shaped their learnings into their own nonprofit. And while the stories differed greatly, there were such similarities as to the ups and downs, the emotions, the fears, the triumphs and the journeys of this diverse community of people gathered around people who are differently abled.
And then it hit me. Just because the book was being written, I didn’t have to stop meeting people and gathering stories. That my friends was the genesis of this blog. In this space I will be able to continue meeting great kids, great parents, dedicated doctors, compassionate therapists, nonprofit leaders, and much more. And through this blog I can share their stories, their hopes, their road blocks, their insights, and their JOY along the way.
I hope you will enjoy my posts. If you do, please share them with others. A big goal of mine is this work forms a community. I’d also love your ideas. Tell me what you’d like to read about. And introduce me to stories that might make future blog posts. Many of you are in the presence of heroes who walk among us every day. Contact me and tell me about them. I’d love to meet them and I bet those of you reading this would like to meet them too.
I look forward to sharing this space with you!