Paola's life shifts overnight when she discovers she is pregnant with a third child—her youngest is not yet a year old. She already has two daughters, ages five and one. After an initial moment of uncertainty, Paola and her husband Umberto choose to embrace this new life with joy. Gabriele—Lillo—arrives, their third child and only son, carrying with him all their hopes and dreams.
The book traces, with simplicity and great tenderness, the ordinary moments of family life that lead to the discovery of Gabriele's "difference" and the profound impact autism has on every member of the household. Organized in brief, single-theme chapters that read almost like a travel diary of daily life in a "special" family, it lays bare both the failures of public and medical support for autism and, at the same time, the author's deep gratitude for those who have crossed paths with Lillo and chosen to meet him where he is, truly loving him. Throughout, an underlying current of steadfast hope sustains the narrative.
Two moments stand out as particularly moving: the celebration of Gabriele's eighteenth birthday, and a chapter on emotion without words, which offers a beautiful definition of autism itself.
Carla Cecilia, 2018