Fall and Recovery

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Special educator Joanne De Simone bears all in this raw and transformative memoir that captures how she used lessons of modern dance in her journey through motherhood with two children with disabilities. When the pediatrician places the measuring tape around her infant's head and notes, "His head is a little small," Joanne knows that motherhood won't be as she had dreamt. Even as a special educator, Joanne isn't prepared to raise a child with a life-limiting brain malformation. Nor is she ready for the compounded pain and alienation that comes when her second son is diagnosed with autism. But the struggle to balance her sons' medical and educational challenges drives Joanne to reconnect with the lessons she learned as a modern dancer—and there she finds enlightenment. Inspired by her experience performing José Limón's There Is a Time , based on Ecclesiastes 3, each chapter of Fall and Recovery details a dance lesson and the dichotomy of