by Emily Rapp
First published 2013
Emily Rapp had mapped out her son Ronan's future before he could walk. He would solve crosswords like his father, ski mountains like his mother, speak multiple languages, excel in school. At nine months old, doctors delivered a devastating diagnosis: Tay-Sachs disease, a fatal condition that would halt his development at six months and claim his life by age three. Rapp and her husband must abandon every assumption about parenthood they once held. They cannot plan for milestones or college funds or graduations. Instead, they learn to live entirely in the present moment with their dying child. Rapp decides to "make my world big" in response to this unthinkable situation. She turns to literature, philosophy, theology, and myth to understand what it means to parent without hope of a future, seeking wisdom in the works of writers from C.S. Lewis to Sylvia Plath.
Genres: family-life, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, grief
272 pages · Hardcover · The Penguin Press HC
Content warnings: terminal-illness