Without a Word: How a Boy's Unspoken Love Changed Everything » (Unabridged)

Jill Kelly, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist. She is the author of The Golden Fairy and The Lost Star Children of Ur and was creator of the radio series, The Cycle of Darkness is Over. She is the founder and director of the Homestar School in Oakland, Michigan, where she currently resides.

Dr. Richard Gerber (1954-2007) received his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. He is highly respected for his 25 years of progressive research into alternative methods of diagnosis and healing.

"Your son has been diagnosed with a fatal genetic disease called Krabbe Leukodystrophy. There is no treatment and no cure. I will do everything I can to help your son. But the disease has already progressed so fast that I don't think he will live to see his second birthday." With these words, pro football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly and his wife, Jill, were catapulted from a seemingly fairy-tale life of celebrity into a world of private struggle and medical uncertainty. What the public didn't know, however, was that behind the scenes lurked more than a family's pain at the dire prognosis of their only son. Hunter's illness exposed the troubled depths of a marriage that had long been shadowed by uncertainties of its own. For eight years the future was unwritten, with Hunter defying all medical odds and his parents pursuing every means to save his life. Meanwhile, Jim and Jill's marriage continued to fail yet was held together only by their love for their kids and their determined...

Publishers Weekly

Kelly, wife of pro football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly and mom to Hunter, the child on whom her memoir is focused, shares her experience with a candid and genuine spirit. Jill entered the big leagues with Buffalo Bills quarterback Kelly as a naïve young 20-something woman who first became pregnant and then became Mrs. Kelly. The author quite transparently discusses how ill-equipped both she and Jim were for matrimony. When their second child, Hunter, was born with the neurodegenerative disorder Krabbe disease, life turned inside out for them as individuals and as a couple. The text chronicles Hunter's medical journey; his spirit of love overcame countless obstacles while affecting his family's lives, even long after he died. Kelly shares one very public family's journey through grievous suffering and shows how God healed their pain in his own time and way. (Sept.)