About a Boy with Autism & His Sister

Look at the beautiful cover!
Storybook written & illustrated by my cousin, Linda Silver,
parent of a grown son with autism.

Left to right: Uncle Aldo, Aunt Edith, Joey, Joe, Linda & Lori

I've blogged about my cousin before. A few years older than me, more Sis's contemporary than mine, she was mod [pale lipstick], sewed her own clothes, went to art school. I vividly remember buying her soft, slim pink powder puffs [to apply makeup] at the drugstore on Washington Avenue in Dumont one Christmastime. I also recall the intricately decorated envelopes that arrived in our black metal mailbox along with Mom's New Yorker and household bills. Linda and Sis were pen pals.

Lin has drawn/designed her family's beautiful Christmas cards for decades. Right out of art school, she was hired as an artist at Hallmark in Kansas City! Later, she married Joe, moved to Alaska, then Ohio, then back to NJ. Along the way, this remarkable woman had two children, Joey and Lori--and a career, too.

Joey has autism. Just recently, near age 30, he moved out of Linda's and Joe's home and into a group home nearby in South Jersey. He lives with a few other young men, under the care of supervisors.

Now Lin has written and illustrated Snow Day, a quietly touching book about Josh and Jenny [based on her children] and how Jenny believes Josh can learn what others can't imagine he can. On snow days, she takes the time to teach him.

What joy and hope that must have brought to Lin--as optimistic as she is, as wonderful as the teamwork is between her and Joe, having a child with autism presents its own upward struggle. How glorious that she had the presence of mind to embrace those lessons Lori gave Joey on snow days--that she wasn't too exhausted, wrung-out and hopeless to notice. That she saw the light. [I speak of how flattened I have felt at times in the face of a child's illnesses.] What a gift her message will be for other parents of children with autism--for other parents of kids who are different.

Here is the link to SNOW DAY, $12.99. Good night.

TCOY

1. Went to Mass with Punch. Caught a little quiet prayer. And she lit two candles in the back--for her daddy, my daddy, her mommy, my mommy.
2. We got to visit my friend Claire and her lovely children and hold the newborn baby, Henry, Claire and Patrick's fourth child, born two days before Thanksgiving! He was so sweet and cute. I loved holding him, and so did Punchy.
3. She and I walked Sug around the block before dinner tonight, and saw pretty Christmas lights wound around porch posts, trees and hedges. 
4. Ate some broccoli rabe and half a clementine. Bought Skim Plus milk.
5. Nailed my daily Fitbit step goal.