Loving Rachel: A Family's Journey from Grief »

Jane Bernstein, a professor of English and creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University, is the author of Rachel in the World: A Memoir, Bereft--A Sister's Story, and other books. For more, visit www.janebernstein.net. 

A candid and compelling chronicle of one family’s bumpy road toward accepting their mentally retarded daughter

Publishers Weekly

In heart-wrenching detail the struggle of a New Jersey family to cope with a near-blind, probably retarded infant daughter is chronicled in this journal that begins with the child's birth in 1983 and ends in her third year. Bernstein (Departures) and her husband, already the parents of three-year-old Charlotte, knew early on that something was amiss when Rachel remained an unusually placid baby, sleeping much of the time. Devastated though they were by the diagnosis of optic nerve hypoplasia, an uncommon disorder, the parents emerged from grief, moved through stages of conflict, researched the etiology of Rachel's condition, worked with their child and, eventually, achieved a modest reward in their daughter's limited development. The story of Rachel is also a story of a marriage and the ways families are changed when they not only accept but actively love their ``special'' child. (June)