Keeping Katherine: A Mother's Journey to Acceptance [Kindle Edition]

Susan Zimmermann (Author)

Book Description

Katherine was a beautiful, perfect baby for the first year of her life. Then, without warning, she changed forever. She started crossing her eyes. She cried at night for hours at a time and could not be soothed. She stopped saying words, stopped crawling, and began what would become a lifelong habit of wringing her hands. Hospital visits and consultations with doctors offered no answers to the mystery. Soon Katherine slipped away to a place her mother and father could never reach.

In Keeping Katherine, Susan Zimmermann tells the story of her life with her daughter Katherine, who has Rett syndrome, a devastating neurological disorder. Writing with honesty and candor, Zimmermann chronicles her personal journey to accept the changed dynamic of her family; the strain of caring for a special needs child and the pressure it placed on her marriage, career, and relationship with her parents; the dilemma of whether Kat would be better cared for in a group home; and most important, the altered reality of her daughter’s future. A story of personal transformation that reminds us that it isn’t what happens to us that shapes our humanity, but how we react, Keeping Katherine shows the unconditional love that exists in families and the gifts the profoundly disabled can offer to those who try to understand them.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Susan Zimmermann’s deeply moving book will touch all people, not only parents. Her courage, her joy, and her hope reach through her tragedy and offer us all a way of life that is creative, no matter what the circumstances.” —Madeleine L’Engle, Newbery Award–winning author

“Susan Zimmermann portrays, with honesty, passion, and wisdom, a chapter of her life that is both deeply terrifying and wholly inspiring. It is a story of loss and gain, pain and joy, and—above all—profound truth. It is a story with the power to change your life.” —T. A. Barron, author of Heartlight, The Ancient One, and The Lost Years of Merlin series

“Susan’s story—and Kat’s—is a profound gift. Susan reminds us that it isn’t what happens to us that determines our life, but how we respond to it.” —Marilyn Van Derbur, author of Miss America By Day


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

Susan Zimmermann lives in Colorado with her husband and four children. She is the author of Writing to Heal the Soul and a coauthor of The 7 Keys to Comprehension and The Mosaic of Thought.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 1245 KB
• Print Length: 240 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (December 18, 2007)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000XUDGGW
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #264,290 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest Words January 22, 2005

By Carolyn Murray

Format:Paperback

I always scan the newest titles in the special needs section when I visit bookstores. My son, like Zimmermann's daughter, is profoundly disabled. I look for books that connect me to the author's experiences. It helps me to feel less alone. I really scored with this one.

Keeping Katherine is a wise book, exceptionally well-written and honest. Although I didn't go through the extended period of repressed grieving that the author did, I understand it. Among most of us with non-verbal, profoundly affected children, there is the ongoing experience of mourning. It rises and falls, and it doesn't take away the beauty we see in our sons and daughters, nor does it negate the powerful love we feel for them.

In the book, she writes, "To cope with Kat, I have sought out those people like Rita and Linda Orona, who loved Katherine as she was and took comfort from her. Those who held her close and looked directly in her eyes. Those who felt no embarrassment, but understood the peace of her presence."

Those words spoke to me. The book is a wonderful read for parents of children with disabilities, as well as anyone interested in the power of love.

Carolyn Murray

danielsgift.com

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Honesty isn't always the best policy. January 15, 2008

By Julia Beckwith

Format:Paperback

Yes, the author is honest, to the point of heartbreak. I really disliked this book, and it just broke my heart how Katherine was treated. It seems as though the author was very self absorbed and couldn't accept Katherine for who she is. I too have a non-verbal, non-ambulatory daughter, so I understand how it feels, I live it.

What I didn't understand was the author's several trips and conferences and most of all the family trips and vacations and then they would leave Katherine at HOME with a caregiver so they didn't have to deal with her. I also couldn't wrap my head around the Grandparents totally ignoring Katherine and the Author allowing them to treat her so shabby. There was a point in the book where the family leaves to go stay at the Grandparents and when they are leaving Katherine is crying, but they go without her anyway!

The author went on and on about HER grief and how she needed the trips etc...but what about Katherine? Just because a person can't talk doesn't mean they can't feel. The author made it seem as though just because she kept Katherine at home that was better than putting her into a care home, yet she was ignored in the home! She wrote about her younger daughter paying more attention to Katherine than she as a Mother did, and how the daughter's felt bad that Katherine was left alone in her room and the times they went away without her.

The only redeeming thing was the end when Katherine has a caretaker that takes her on all kinds of trips and spends so much time with her.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the truth about Rett May 19, 2010

By Ashley Urban

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book was exactly what I've been looking for. Rett is not common in my area so no one knows what it's like. I needed something from a parent's perspective that was brutally honest, and this is it. Susan is truly a hero, and did the world a favor by writing the truth in her book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book December 8, 2012

By JanetReeves

Format:Kindle Edition

Take the time to read this book and it will make you appreciate the things you have in life and recognize the hardships others face, what an extraordinary book, it will change the way you see the world.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and inspiring November 8, 2012

By Susan Holman

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Wonderful book with great insight to living a life that wasn't what you planned. Susan Zimmerman is an amazingly strong woman.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Challenge of Love October 15, 2009

By Margaret M. Rhyne

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you don't love, you aren't challenged. This book presents a journey of love and loss and acceptance.

The most difficult thing a parent can experience is losing a "normal" child to a disease or condition and then parenting the "new" child. One can never forget the child whom was lost, despite the love and devotion to the disabled child.

As a mother of a disabled child for 29 years (whom we suspected had Rett Syndrome but didn't), this book gave me another voice in the wilderness.

Margaret Marshall Rhyne, Remembering Alexis, Finding Perspective in Love and Loss

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine balance May 6, 2008

By Lissa A. Forbes

Format:Paperback

I just finished reading your touching account of your journey with Katherine. I found your book while in search of "models" for a book I've been invited to help publish. Your book is the perfect starting place for me to help.

You balance love and loss, the emotional and the practical, the personal and the public, so eloquently. You made me love Kat and I haven't even met her. You mirrored my thoughts about terminating a life because you may learn of a probably handicap. I've always thought that these children bring a special message. True, I live in my own glass bubble ... I didn't have to face the hardships of raising such a child year after year. Both my boys are healthy young men now, but I did have a short-lived scare with the oldest. He spent the first week of his life in NICU.

In only that short time, I experience a wide range of emotions ... including not being able to name my baby because he might not live ... then realized I HAD to name him because he might not live.

I'm glad you shared that part of you that our society wants us to hide. The "not nice" thoughts and contemplations. It only makes sense to me that you wouldn't be able to include Katherine on all of your life experiences and why shouldn't you take some time to refresh and renew so you would be able to give more to your beloved child. It was ever clear to me that although you had trouble accepting her condition, you loved/love her very much. You struck a fine balance.

More About the Author

An internationally-known speaker and workshop leader, Susan Zimmermann is coauthor of the educational bestsellers Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition (2007) and 7 Keys to Comprehension (with Chryse Hutchins, 2003). She cofounded and served as the Executive Director of the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition, an organization that has spearheaded ground-breaking comprehension work. During her ten years there, she initiated numerous programs to improve the quality of public schools, including the Reading Project, which has been implemented in more than one hundred schools and provides the examples in Mosaic of Thought, Second Edition, and 7 Keys. As part of Heinemann Speakers, Susan also provides Professional development through Heinemann related to comprehension strategy teaching. Visit her Heinemann Speakers page for more information. Susan is also the author of Keeping Katherine (2005); Writing to Heal the Soul (2002), winner of the Colorado Book Award; and Grief Dancers (1996), finalist for the Colorado Book Award and winner of the Exceptional Parent symbol of excellence for its "profound contribution to human understanding and dignity." These wise and inspiring books grew out of Susan's personal experience of raising her profoundly handicapped daughter Katherine, who developed normally for her first year, but then experienced a devastating neurological disorder (Rett syndrome) that left her unable to walk, talk or feed herself. Currently a full-time speaker and writer, Susan has given hundreds of workshops, keynotes, and summer institutes in over 40 states, throughout Canada, and in Mexico on ways to deepen reading and writing experiences for adults and children. A lover of the wilderness and believer in the transformative power of the outdoors, she has been a trustee of the Colorado Outward Bound School and served as the board chair of The Women's Wilderness Institute, an organization that provides wilderness learning experiences for adolescent girls and women. Susan is a graduate of Yale Law School and mother of four. She lives in the foothills west of Denver. For more information on Susan Zimmermann visit her Web site at www.susanzimmermann.com.