It shows you a naked glimpse into their personal lives, their travels and their mystical journey with their trisomy 18 baby Quincy.Embracing Quincy is full of stories of love, humor, psychic phenomena and mystical coincidences that will make even the most skeptical start to question their beliefs. This book will take you to far away lands as it weaves Quincy's story in and out of the Marsh's moves and travels and search for creating a sustainable farm on which to raise their family.This book non-judgmentally explores issues such as "pro life" versus "pro choice" abortion decisions, karma and reincarnation, the possibility of effecting miracles through quantum physics and the law of attraction, and the power of prayer in large numbers.Most of all, Embracing Quincy shows what a mother and father will do for the love of their unborn baby.If you liked Eat, Pray, Love and Expecting Adam, you'll love Embracing Quincy.

    She and her friends from Nobby’s Beach are the first women in Australia to gain their Bronze medallions for Surf Life Saving. On the eve of the year 1981 on the Gold Coast, Australia, this active teenager’s life is about to shatter and transform her once perfect world into one of despair as she tackles a life of paralysis. Through the support of her friends and family, Kerri will find her way back to the water and into the history books.A memoir filled with joy, tears, letters and poetry of a time when all else seemed lost. A life of hopes, dreams, love and humility learned.

    Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one, at last, have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. Questions such as: “Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?” “Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?” “Why don’t you make eye contact when you’re talking?” and “What’s the reason you jump?” (Naoki’s answer: “When I’m jumping, it’s as if my feelings are going upward to the sky.”) With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights—into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory—are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again.

    When they dropped from the public eye after Curt’s retirement, everyone assumed it was for a simpler life. But the reality behind their seclusion was a secret they hid from even their closest friends: their twins, Austin and Christian, had been diagnosed with severe autism. What followed was a painful struggle to hold their family and their marriage together in a home filled with chaos, emotional exhaustion, and constant fear for the safety of their unpredictable but beloved boys.Now, after years of silence, the Warners share their inspiring journey from stardom and success to heartbreaking self-imposed isolation. Above all, it’s a story of the life-changing truth that love for family and each other—no matter how challenged—is the path to healing and peace.The Warner Boys is the true story of a family who fought for their children and how they grew stronger against all odds.

    Although at the time he was not intending that it would ever be published, he gradually came to recognize our “sacred covenant to share our burdens, our mourning, our comforts, and our witnesses.” The lessons he offers in this thoughtful and sensitive book are more than a chronicle of his own journey; they are important reminders to all of us to cherish every day we have with the people we love, to treasure the gift of our mortality, and to turn to the Lord in all our trials.

    Through difficult life changes -- Cyprus's bloody coup and war in 1974, a rescue from a sinking ship in the Indian Ocean, learning of her husband s secret life, and surviving his deadly assault in Belgium -- she discovers her ticking clock is not the child she has failed to produce, but rather the creative potential with which she can create a new life.

    Instead, she found a city full of people who knew where they were going and what they were doing and didn't have time for a girl still trying to figure it all out. Lonely and depressed, she noticed a woman who looked like she felt the same way on the subway. Hannah did something strange--she wrote the woman a letter. She folded it, scribbled If you find this letter, it's for you on the front and left it behind. When she realized that it made her feel better, she started writing and leaving love notes all over the city--in doctor's offices, in coat pockets, in library books, in bathroom stalls. Feeling crushed within a culture that only felt like connecting on a screen, she poured her heart out to complete strangers. She found solace in the idea that her words might brighten someone's day.Hannah's project took on a life of its own when she made an offer on her blog: She would handwrite a note and mail it to anyone who wanted one. Overnight, her inbox exploded with requests from people all over the world. Nearly 400 handwritten letters later, she started the website, The World Needs More Love Letters, which quickly grew. There is something about receiving a handwritten note that is so powerful in today's digital era. If You Find This Letter chronicles Hannah's attempts to bring more love into the world,and shows how she rediscovered her faith through the movement she started.

    

    They're so ridiculous you may think they're fiction. Like the time I went to a drive-in X-rated movie without realizing my parents were in the next car. Or the time I let my kid throw a rock through our living room window. There's the time I bought a camouflage thong in a bait shop and the time I ruined a kid's birthday party. And the other time I ruined a kid's birthday party. I can't guarantee that these stories will make you laugh, but I can guarantee that I didn't make them up.

    After definitively winning the 2009 season of Australian Idol at the age of 19, R&B sensation Stan Walker's career went from strength to strength. His first album, Introducing Stan Walker, went platinum in Australia and triple platinum in New Zealand; his second; From the Inside Out, debuted at number one on the New Zealand Albums Charts and number two on the ARIA charts. He's won multiple New Zealand Music Awards, been a judge on The X Factor NZ, and played starring roles in films Mt Zion and Born to Dance.Yet few knew what he had had to overcome reach these dizzying heights.Before Australian Idol, Walker had survived a childhood marred with poverty, domestic violence and sexual abuse; dabbled in crime and drug use; and suffered his own personal tragedy. For the first time, he speaks candidly about his rags-to-riches story - and the trials and tribulations he's had to deal with since.The trans-Tasman R&B superstar's raw and open memoir is a lesson that no matter how many setbacks, no matter the odds, you will succeed if you have the courage and belief to do so.

    Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt’s inspiring account of how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of reading, writing, and the love of his parents and his girlfriend (and now-wife), Andrea. And eventually, he learned to appreciate life all the more for it. Everyone’s lives are touched by mental illness: if we do not suffer from it ourselves, then we have a friend or loved one who does. Matt’s frankness about his experiences is both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it. Above all, his humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope. Speaking as his present self to his former self in the depths of depression, Matt is adamant that the oldest cliché is the truest—there is light at the end of the tunnel. He teaches us to celebrate the small joys and moments of peace that life brings, and reminds us that there are always reasons to stay alive.

    The role reversal involved is emotionally and intellectually demanding, and many caregivers find themselves unprepared to undertake such a difficult task. In Trading Places: Becoming My Mother’s Mother, author Sandra Bullock Smith shares her personal experiences spending ten years caring for her ailing mother. This heartfelt look at the trials and tribulations of that decade offers powerful insight and encouragement for anyone entering into a similar period of life. Smith’s touching stories share the heartbreaking, and sometimes comical, moments she experienced while providing assistance to her aging parent—and how they mirrored similar events from her own childhood. In a very real sense, the two women traded places. Smith found herself uttering phrases she heard all too often as a child, such as, “Don’t give your food to the dog” and, “You’ve had enough sugar today.” Smith began jotting down the things she said, and thus this charming book was born. Filled with respect, compassion, and love, this uplifting and amusing memoir is for anyone involved in elder care or who may face the role in the future.

    This memoir is a love story about the wonderful, humorous, and sometimes harrowing experiences that await when a woman throws her heart to the wind just to see where it lands. After taking a job at a weekly newspaper in Homer, Alaska, Jill and her partner forge a new life in a town where artists and sport fishermen drive the local economy, grizzly bears roam through back yards, social outings feature death-defying ski trips or kayaking rough seas in freezing rain, and business attire means wearing three sweaters to an unheated office. As Jill adapts to Homer's idiosyncrasies, she finds her own quirky hobby — riding a bike on snow. Despite having little in the way of an athletic background or talent, Jill signs up for a hundred-mile race across frozen wilderness. As the harsh Alaskan winter sets in, she launches a tenacious training routine that takes her far out of her comfort zone. Here, under the Northern Lights, battling exhaustion and extreme cold, Jill discovers the heart of Alaska. And there's no going back.

    If I was starving, then that meant that I did not have to face reality. I did not have to think. When you’re starving, you cannot think. Every day feels like an out-of-body experience, and everything sounds like you are swimming underwater. When you have Anorexia Nervosa, you aren’t living… you are merely existing. You become a walking corpse of the person you once were. Your life becomes about finding ways to satisfy your disorder and nothing else really matters. You know that there is a chance that you won’t wake up the next morning, but keeping the Anorexia alive is more important than keeping yourself alive. You convince yourself that as long as you are hungry that somehow everything is okay. This was my life for 10 ½ years. My name is Syanne Centeno and I found Anorexia as an eight-year-old little girl. You could say that I accidentally stumbled upon this illness, or maybe IT actually found ME. I didn’t know what Anorexia was, and had never heard of it. I actually didn’t hear the term “Anorexia Nervosa” until I was 14, but had unknowingly been engaging in eating disorder behavior for years prior. Anorexia is such a complex, perplexing disorder. Trying to explain why I developed this as a child is nearly impossible. The only thing I can do is write down my experience and take you on a journey in my shoes in hopes that this will help someone somewhere understand the realities of living with an eating disorder." This is the account of Syanne's journey with severe Anorexia Nervosa (which she named "Ana"), a deadly psychiatric illness that haunts thousands of young girls and women each year. Throughout her honest, gut-wrenching tale she relives the horror of battling "Ana" for over a decade starting at the age of just eight-years-old, and how it nearly took her life. Along with Anorexia Nervosa, Syanne speaks of the other mental illness's she struggled with such as Depression, Borderline Personality Disorder, and self- mutilation. Without holding back, Syanne highlights the realities of living with an eating disorder, and what it took for her to overcome it.

    As a teenager, Cara's family home burnt to the ground. That tragedy led her on a journey that would span a variety of countries and cultures. While she was in Morocco, a woman suffered from a fatal injury. Grieving the unnecessary death, Cara resolved that, next time, she would know what to do to save a life.In this fascinating and searingly honest memoir, Cara reveals what eventually led her to support women in one of the most significant experiences of their lives. Balancing science with intuition, parenthood with her work, and sacrifice with joy, Cara shows us what it means to be alive and to live a life of purpose.Just as readers are fascinated by Carly Fiorina's or Elizabeth Gilbert's journeys, they will find great inspiration in Cara's journey to live her calling. Whether you read about her "in Vogue "or the" New York Times"; saw her in the documentary "The Business of Being Born," by filmmakers Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein; or are learning about her for the first time here, you are sure to be inspired by her remarkable story.