Recently, I was looking some up on the Library Search and I some how came across this book by Paul Daughtery, called AN UNCOMPLICATED LIFE : A Father’s Memoir of His Exceptional Daughter. After reading a short blurb about it I knew it was one I was going to have to make time to read.
Little did I know that my time would be spent in the emergency room waiting for doctors to agree what to do with me. That is a whole other story … As Penny and I, sat the first part of the day in the ER I began reading my book. She kept asking me what I was reading, if it was good, what it was about, etc. Finally after the fifth or sixth time of telling her it was called An Uncomplicated Life she said, “Oh, like our life right Mommy?” I had to get a small chuckle out of this as here we sat going on the six hour in the ER … me in pain and no medication and her with ADHD and medication, but how long was it going to last?
An Uncomplicated Life takes us from the before Jillian’s days to her birth all the way through her graduation in college and life with her current boyfriend/fiancee. While reading this story it gives you a nice, overview of the life which Jillian has lived her life. A life of normalcy to Jillian. When Jillian was born, Paul and Kerry decided that they weren’t going to focus on the limitations placed upon their daughter but, instead, they would look for the possibilities. Choosing the positive approach over a negative one certainly served Jillian well. As Mr. Daughtery explains it … “It’s a book about how her disability enables the rest of us.”
Their mantra becomes “Expect: Don’t Accept”, “Nothing is Definite”, and “Let Jillian be Jillian.” I love this and I am going to have to post it in our school room (for those of you that don’t know we home school). You find Paul and Kerry sometimes questioning their decision to fight the school system to keep Jillian in a traditional classroom, wondering if they were expecting too much of their daughter. A good part of the book focuses on this and the struggles you come across in the school system when you have a special needs child. it is one I am glad I do not have to fight. You will find yourself cheering for them and Jillian as they show that people with disabilities have rights and should not be casts offs.
The one part of the book I can say I was disappointed is just a short little paragraph and not the author’s fault, as he did not say it, but I was saddened in a way to see it included in the book. Nancy was on of Jillian’s early teachers that they in fact did like.
“One day, Nancy declared the class would
bake a cake together. It combined cooking skills with match know-how as
well as the important of reading and understanding the directions. One
of Jillian’s friends, a boy named Layton, had never cooked.
He had been
home schooled, Nancy said. “He’d never so much as cracked an egg.”
I guess my feelings just got hurt as a home
schooler by this. I would say this teacher needs to be educated that
home schooled children do not live in the dark age and do know how to do more then just play outside.
I breezed through this book during my
eighteen hour ER visit. I found myself at times crying and at other
times wanting to shout “Go Jillian”. I would highly recommend this as a
must read if you are a parent of a Special Needs Child. I would also
recommend it to those of you that don’t have a Special Needs Child and
just need to maybe read a touching book that will make you hug your
child and be thankful for what you
have .
RATING: 5 STARS
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