Blue Sky July: A Mother's Story of Hope and Healing » (Reprint)

Nia Wyn was a journalist in Wales and London.

Set between the summers of 1998 and 2005, Blue Sky July follows the story of Nia Wyn, a mother who battled against impossible odds to heal her son Joe, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy soon after he was born. Told by doctors that he would never walk, talk, see, or even recognize her, Wyn devoted her every waking moment to exploring alternative treatments.

Through an intimate portrayal of her day-to-day interactions with her son and partner-as well as her own internal struggles, perceptions, and celebrations-Wyn shares her own uplifting story of resilience in the face of tragedy.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

In this poetic, heartrending memoir, UK journalist and first time author Wyn relates seven years of personal struggle and small victories trying to raise and heal a son with severe cerebral palsy. Diagnosed in his first year with the most extreme form of the disability, Joe was born blind, without any hope of ever walking or communicating: "He won't even know you," the neurologist tells them. Joe's seemingly hopeless condition quickly takes over Wyn's world: "It is like death." Desperate for a cure ("Impossible," her doctor says), Wyn pursues every possible therapy-from faith healers and prayer to physical patterning and swimming-losing both her marriage and career as she falls deeper into Joe's world. Along the way she discovers the fate of other babies with cerebral palsy, given up to foster care or institutionalized as wards of the state by parents unable to cope. This difficult-to-face story is carried along effortlessly by Wyn's elegant, fractured prose and hard-won moments of triumph: "Today,/ for the very first time,/ I saw the way he seemed to prefer/ to lift his face to the wind." Any parent is sure to be enthralled, encouraged, and deeply touched.
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