“The only thing you feel is the force of the blast rattling your body. All that is left is a crater where something stood before and a shockwave that flattens the surrounding area for miles. Every dream I had for my daughter, every plan, every single thing was flattened to the ground, and at the center was the crater where I had been.”

Those words, poignant beyond belief, those words epitomize the feeling a parent has when they realize that their child doesn’t fit into society’s definition of “normal.” That pain is real. Dreams are shattered, and your life is no longer your own. It’s in that very moment you fall apart. You question. You do, you question, You question everyone, but you especially question yourself. It’s in that moment that you fall to you knees and scream “WHY? WHY ME?” It’s directly after that meltdown, the guilt ensues, guilt that cripples you. Your heart is broken. You are broken. This isn’t what you signed on for. All of these emotions hit you, dead smack in the face. In the face, and what do you do?

It’s in that moment when your world crashes at your feet that you learn that sometimes the unexpected teaches us our greatest lessons. It’s in life’s tragedies that we find our true purpose. It’s through the beauty of the unknown that we find the beauty in the simplistic. It’s when we can no longer imagine moving forward, that we find our strength. Sometimes there is beauty in the enigma, if we simply slow down and allow it to surface. Occasionally, life has a bigger message, and we have a purpose greater than our own.

“Days like this will strip you raw. They happen regardless of what we do, not because of it.”

In the book Lily Love by Author Maggi Myers that’s the lesson we are taught. You learn acceptance not only of others but of yourself. This book is a tale of Caroline’s journey to find love and acceptance, not only of others but of her own. This is the remarkable story of a mother’s love. A mother’s doubt. A mother’s questioning. The charters in this book are no only real, but they are beautiful. We are privy to see them all unfold and grow. The writing style is impeccable. Mrs. Myers, is amazing. She’s got a way with words. She chooses the most eloquent word choices but mixes them with just enough snarky to keep you giggling.

Life. It happens whether we want it to or not. When you wake up in this situation what can you do? You do what you have to. You keep going.This story is an amazing journey of life’s lessons in so many formats. There is beauty in these tears, lessons in the pain. Sometimes people are brought into your life, whether it be a child, a friend, or even a stranger, for exactly the right reason. As the mother of a child born with special needs, I personally wish someone had told me the things Caroline is telling in this book. It truthfully would have made my life so much easier. I would have realized that everything I felt was normal, I wouldn’t have felt so guilty and I wouldn’t have questioned my mothering skills. Most of all, I would have let the guilt go. This is a book for all parents, not just those of children with special needs. Parents are people. We have questions, get angry, and make mistakes, it doesn’t make us bad parents, or bad people, quite the contrary it makes us real. The love a parent receives from a special needs child is all encompassing. Life’s purest blessing. For all the struggles we go through, we’ve been given life’s greatest gift.

“From the mouth of my baby girl, comes the most beautiful sentence I’d ever heard. She can’t read her ABC’s or count past ten, but she accepted a stranger, “my” stranger – with openheartedness she not not always receive herself. I’m so incredibly blessed that she is mine, that they both are.”