I recently finished reading Jewel by Bret Lott. It is the story of a woman and her choice to overcome the obstacles placed in her life.
From early in Jewel's life events do not happen according to plan. In spite of this she continually chooses to not only live with what is placed before her, but to make the best of things and even to attempt to conquer situations. Jewel's life is forever changed when her 6th child is born with Down's-Syndrome in a day when parents were told to institutionalize their child, and services and information were limited at best.
Jewel is the story of a courageous woman--a woman whose success is not obvious to anyone but felt by the reader in her continual push towards overcoming the things in her life that, though unplanned, are often the tools that shape and refine and guide her to a path of purpose.
"I felt tears well up in me, the hard knot at my throat like a cold fist, because this was the truth of me: I wanted to find in my child fear of the future, when all along, I saw, it was me who was afraid, Brenda Kay more equipped than any of us for my ending, because she could not know what loss was. 'Miss Daddy,' she'd sometimes call to me in the kitchen of an evening, and I'd go in to the living room, a dishtowel in my hands as I dried them off, and I'd search her face for some sign of tears, of genuine grief, only to see her smile..."Jewel is a wonderful, well-written story full of challenges, courage and hope. Highly recommended!
What are you reading?
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