ENCORE PRESENTATION: ''Love Lessons in the Purest Form'' with guest Cristina Nehring

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitute's neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. Welcome to Becoming the Journey.
This show will be a series ofconversations that will inspire listeners along their
life's journey. This show's mission isto cultivate a community of mentorship by sharing

(00:21):
our experiences in our life's journey.Nobody's journey is a straight line, So
no matter where you are in yours, this show is for you. Meet
Grace Loverray, Hi listeners, andthanks for tuning in to Becoming the Journey
on WOR seven ten I Heart Radio. Today's show is about and I had

(00:43):
to really think about this because myguest has got so many parts to her,
and so I'm just going to sayit's about love lessons in the purest
form. A little bio would beShe is a Paris based but California born
author. She studied at the suboneif I said there correctly Stanford and UCLA,

(01:10):
where she has a PhD in literature. Her first book, A Vindication
of Love, Reclaiming Romance for thetwenty first Century, appeared on the cover
of New York Times Book Review intwo thousand and nine. She has written
articles for Hoppers, The Atlantic,Conte Neast, Traveler, O and L
magazines, as well as NYT,London Review Books, and The Wall Street

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Journal. I've read some of thearticles. I've gone back. Today,
though, we're going to talk moreabout her latest book, which is called
The Child Who Never Spoke twenty threeand a half Lessons in Fragility. Welcome
Christina. It's Christina Nahring. I'mjust going to say the book is about

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your very delightful disabled daughter who hasdown syndrome, who those twenty three and
a half lessons will learned. WelcomeChristina. So the first thing I've wanted
thank you for having me. Ah, You're more than welcome. I am.
You are my new hero. Iam totally in awe of the way

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you write, and for my audience, I must tell you, Christina's writing
is both ethereal visceral, and yourwords are visual. I am just,
I am just. You are suchan amazing writer. But let's talk a

(02:44):
little bit about your daughter. Let'sgo right there. So her name is.
I'm very touched by what you're saying, especially because your audience will soon
find out that I'm a much lesserpublic speaker than I am a public writer,
and and that's fine. I don'tI think there are a lot of

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authors that are probably better page writersthan than speakers, and that's that's fine,
because reading I love to read.I've read, Miss, I've just
actually enjoyed your articles. Some ofthem are amazing, and we're going to
touch on that. But right now, your daughter, who you've named,

(03:24):
you're a d C. Am Icorrect in pronouncing that you read Euridicy?
Okay, so that name is fromGreek mythology. She was the wife of
Orpheus, and I know that herdad is Greek. But was there was

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there a better meaning behind you callingher you read DC? Actually yes or
no? From time I was fourteenyears old, my favorite name in the
world was you were to see.I had a girlfriend in junior high school

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whose name was urd See. Shewas the only person who I ever knew
whose name was ur de See,and I thought it was just a beautiful
name. And even though, asI say in the book, I never
expected or intended to have a child, I thought, if by some incredible

(04:31):
fluke I have a daughter, Iwill call her Eurtice, And then by
some incredible fluke, I not onlyhad a daughter, but I had a
daughter by a Greek man, andso it seemed to me entirely plausible,
and it seemed to me to makesense that I would call her since you

(04:57):
were to see, is a Greekname and her father is Greek, and
it was my favorite name in thefirst place. So so again, which
is pronounced in different ways in differentlanguages. In Greek, it's pronounced every
week in Greek, in French sight, it's pronounced. It's pronounced a different

(05:24):
way in every language. But Ilove all the pronunciations. So so getting
back to the Greek mythology part ofit, and this is going to be
my leading Orpheus was very much inlove with your deceay, and he called
it love at first sight. SoI want to go back to a time.

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You sort of was a rebel inyour younger days. Maybe still now,
I don't know, but you were, and in your book in the
in the beginning of the book,you were very clear and to the point,
I never wanted children. I hadcontempt for people who passed the baton.

(06:08):
It was like an active resignation foryou, and you didn't you,
you didn't have you didn't feel motherly, you didn't want to feel motherly.
There was no such thing as eagerfor an excuse to incarcerate their wives in
the nursery. Fantastic writing, bythe way, And so I wrote that

(06:31):
you did. And so here youare, this nomad adventurer, romantic night
owling writer as you called yourself,and with no intention of ever having children,
but not only not having children,but being so totally against even why

(06:51):
people have children. And you youare now seeing a gentleman for you,
younger that in and of itself hewas kind of a rogue. And you
accidentally got pregnant. And so duringyour pregnancy did you what were your thoughts?

(07:14):
I would love to know what yourthoughts were during your pregnancy. And
I can read a passage from yourbook that really threw me, but I
want to hear from you, like, what were your thoughts when you were
pregnant? How did you feel aboutthat? Wow? I have to admit
that my first thought was, oh, no, I have to get an

(07:35):
abortion right now. That was myfirst thought because I a didn't want a
child be my relationship with my Greekgod and he was. He was something

(07:57):
of a Greek god. He wasa very good booking, very eloquent young
Greek man was teetering it. Itwas not doing so well, and so
I in particular didn't want to havea child with him. But then flew

(08:22):
off to Los Angeles, which iswhere I was born, to talk to
my friends, my parents, mydear and dear people, and to ask
their advice. What should I do? What should I do? I'm pregnant,
and they almost uniformly told me,get unpregnant. You can't do this.

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These are not the right circumstances,This is not the right relationship.
You can't go through with this pregnancy. And somehow, I mean I don't
want to overanalyze myself, but thecontrarian in me uh appeared, and I

(09:13):
thought, what the hell? Thesepeople are all telling me that my child
doesn't deserve it because I have acomplicated relationship with a with a relatively poor
Greek man, and for that reason, they're all advocating abortion. And I

(09:39):
might say that the clock was pickingduring this full time. I mean,
I was already eight weeks, nineweeks, ten weeks pregnant, and then
I saw a therapist who told methat she really thought I should get an

(10:05):
abortion and that it would take meat least sixty therapy sessions to get over
having gotten an abortion. And thisis something I respected. This was someone
I looked up to, actually,and I somehow thought, what bad I'm

(10:26):
not allowed to curse on the show. What the hell? What the hell?
If I have to work so hardto not have a life, maybe
I should work hard to have alife. Maybe I should kind of play
the cards that I've been dealt.I had girlfriends at the time who very

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much wanted children, who had triedto get pregnant, who had not always
managed to get pregnant, And hereI was. I had never tried to
get pregnant, but I was pregnant, and I thought, maybe there's maybe
there's some higher sense in all this, and maybe I will go ahead and

(11:16):
have this child despite everybody's disapprobation.So I'm going to yeah, I'm going
to elaborate a little bit. I'mgoing to read a passage from your book,
because I think this is amazing.So you say in the book,

(11:37):
perhaps it was partly rebellion that mademe keep the child. To hell with
it? I thought if I'm goingto have to work a lot to not
have a child, I might aswell work a lot to have one.
The six breastfeedings a day suddenly nolonger seemed that daunting. They seemed almost
tempting compared to the sixty sessions oftherapy I was presumably facing. If I

(12:03):
aboorded, if I was going towork like hell to get over a death,
I might as well and might aswell work like hell to make a
life. And so I thought thatwas so beautiful, beautifully said uh,
and so you did you you carried? Uh? Did you carry full term?
Yes? I did, Yes,I did. And so there there

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comes now where you've You've delivered abeautiful baby girl, and who I had
no idea would have a disability.Because irresponsible I was, and non pregnancy

(12:48):
centered as I was, I neverhad a had the various tests that you're
supposed to have to discover your childif you're if you're child has a disability.
I don't know what I would havedone if I had found out that
my child had a disability. Butit turns out I didn't. So I

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carried my child to term. Herfather joined me in Paris, where I
had been living before before I metI met him in grief, and immediately
upon birth, it was obvious toall the doctors and nurses there that she

(13:37):
had Down syndrome. I think,in fact, that I was the only
person who didn't realize she had Downsyndrome. I just thought she looked kind
of strange. I mean, shewas kind of purple, but that was
because she wasn't getting enough oxygen.She had a very round head, kind

(14:03):
of planted on her shoulders, likea pumpkin that you put on a on
a on a on a on aon a plate, and it was it
was an odd experience. But Ididn't. I didn't. I had no

(14:24):
idea that she had a genetic anomaly. For all I knew, you know,
all newborns looked that way. Andthen over the next several days,
many tests were done, oxygen wasadministered, My little girl was put into

(14:45):
the intensive care unit, and Ibreast fed her six times a day at
least, which is what I haddreaded like crazy when I was a angle,
nomadic, adventurous young woman. Andthey finally told me, guess what,

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she has Down syndrome? That is, she summoned. They summoned both
her her father, who was inParis though practically not visiting me at all
in the hospital, staying in mymy little studio apartments and and smoking and

(15:33):
and doing nothing to help me.And he appeared and they gave us the
news. They told us, well, the good news is that your daughter,
in fact doesn't have a heart anomaly, which they were afraid of at

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first, and she's gonna be ableto get oxygen in the future. But
the bad news is she's got Downsyndrome. And this this is not America,
this is this is a fairly oldschool French hospital. And there was

(16:21):
one doctor who actually she wasn't inFrench. She was Russian, as you
know if you've read the book,and she burst into tears and said she
was just so sorry. She youknow, knew I was an intellectual and

(16:42):
it would be it was so terriblethat I had a child with Down syndrome,
that she would always be the personwho would be pointed out in the
streets and laughed at. I mean, she apparently hadn't gotten a lot of
training and bedside manner in any case. By that point, weirdly enough,

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I had already fallen in love withmy daughter I had seen her in her
little glass case in the ICU,and she had been so gentle, and
she looked at me with such alerteyes, and I just had begun to

(17:33):
love her to pieces already. Andso when they delivered this piece of presumably
catastrophic news to me, I kindof shrugged. I said, okay,
so what so she's got down tothem, So she's going to be different

(17:53):
from other children. I didn't expecta child at all, you know,
you you actually you actually all right, I'll deal with that. You actually
call it her normalcy, and youalso refer to her as your warrior girl.

(18:15):
But like Orpheus, love at firstsight, I think, And that's
that's just so amazing to me,because that maternal instinct. Would you call
that maternal instinct? Would you havecalled it that? That instant emotions?
That's a really hard question, becausein fact, at first I thought maternal

(18:38):
instinct was nonsense. And I thoughtthat after you was born, because I
didn't immediately fall in love with her. I thought this was a strange looking
creature, this purple Buddha, whodidn't look at all like I would have

(19:06):
imagined a daughter of mine. I'mkind of tall and long limbs, and
her father is tall and long limband very slender. I would have imagined
this sort of long limbs, fenderchilds that I got a I got a

(19:29):
little pumpkin. And so it's justI actually wrote in my diary of the
day that maternal instinct was nonsense,that I didn't feel any maternal instinct towards
this this child at all. Butthis changed radically in the next forty eight

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hours. And I don't know ifit's instinct, or if it's the peculiar
loveliness is my daughter, or whatit is that seeing her in that little
glass case in the intensive care unit, looking up at me trustingly and alertly,

(20:29):
I just thought she was the sweetestthing on earth, and I completely
fell in love with her. Idon't know if it's maternal instinct. I
don't know what it is, butit was strong. I just I just

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did a one hundred and eighty Greekturn and I just came to love this
child when she was three days old. Right, So curious question, and
I mean, I don't think there'sa said answer that you're going to be
able to give me. But ifyou had gone through all the tests that

(21:15):
women go through today and you haddiscovered that she would have a disability,
would you have thought differently? Wouldwould you have done things differently knowing knowing
I should put it two ways,not knowing what you know now, and
knowing what you know now, wouldyou have thought differently? And And I

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know that the statistics are a littlebit mind boggling because it says a small
minority of Down syndrome victims ever liveindependently. Some go into state institutions or
live with their parents until death.Death is admittedly early, and dementia comes

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well before death. They show signsof Alzheimers before forty I mean, the
statistics are mind boggling. And soI mean, would you have changed your
mind in any way? Would youhave felt? And I, in all

(22:23):
honesty, if I had had allthose statistics in addition to my general desire
not to have a child, II would probably have had an abortion.
So I am in no way judgmentalof people who who who have abortions.

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No, not would have done asmuch. I'm pretty sure, knowing what
I know now, However, differentthe absolute is true. My daughter is
a delight, And all these statisticsare constantly changing. I might say.

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When I was born in nineteen seventy, the average lifespan of a person with
Down center was eight years. Nowit's something like fifty nine years, and
I hope that in the future itwill be a lot better than that.

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And children with Down syndrome are alsovery different, just like all children.
Some are a little bit lazier,I'm a little bit more active. My
child happens to be incredibly active,and so I have a hard time imagining

(23:59):
her sort of lazing into Alzheimer's inthe foreseeable future. I mean, she's
only fifteen, so we're or faroff from that. But right knowing what
I know now, I would havedone exactly what I did, which is

(24:21):
have that child and adore her andgive her every opportunity in the world and
travel with her. And by that, for that matter, you evoked earlier
that I used to be adventurous andnomadic. I still am adventurous and nomadic.
I'm just adventurous and nomadic with achild, and she has become adventurous

(24:48):
and nomadic. I don't know,I don't know who influenced too here,
but she is just the game,this girl in the world. From the
time she was, she was asmall incance. I put her to I

(25:10):
was a travel writer. I stillam a travel writer, but I did
more travel writing than than I donow. I would put her to sleep
in a dressing for in a hotelroom that I was staying. I would
just put put a blanket into adrawer and she would. She would go

(25:32):
to sleep in the drawer. Andto this day, I take her with
me everywhere, to Slovenia, toGreece, to Italy, to to Tunisia,
to Morocco, and I the onlything she wants is she has a
special animal she loves, which iskind of strange and coincidental. It's a

(26:00):
unicorn, so it's also kind ofa special animal. She's not actually that
into her bears and her bunnies andher her other animals, but she's crazy
nuts about her unicorn. And sowherever we go, whatever, with whoever

(26:25):
we go. I have a tightboyfriend in Los Angeles who's visiting. Assume
anyway, we're going to go tothe south of France, but we're going
to take Eurydices unicorn, and shecan be anywhere, she can sleep,
anywhere, she can make a happylife anywhere as long as she has her

(26:56):
unicorn. Well, she throws herlittle pudgy arms around him every night.
And then it doesn't matter if she'ssleeping in a sock dar or if she's
sleeping on a proper bed. Right, she's she's happy. Right before,

(27:18):
before I go further on, Ihave a question. So I'm talking with
my guest, Christina Neighboring on myfavorite radio station, w R seven,
and we're talking about her book TheChild Never Spoke twenty three and a half
Lessons in Fragility. So has hasyour deca Never Spoken? How do you

(27:40):
communicate? Well, I admit thetitle is slightly overstated, but only slightly.
My daughter speaks a little bit.She says you, then I love
you. In French, she saysshe has she has a few keywords in

(28:06):
the languages to which she's been exposed, which has been French, English and
fat German, because my parents areGerman, and so I I speak to
her a little bit of German,and she she does have a handful of

(28:26):
words and a handful of sentences,but not a lot. And she nonetheless
manages to express her wishes pretty incrediblyclearly. She grabs you by the hand,

(28:49):
She takes you to whatever she isinterested in, and she points and
she says, dennah dena, Isee. Okay, you're to say,
so you want the chocolate of cookies, or or you you want the you
you want the iPad, or youwant what the picture of your of your

(29:14):
boyfriend in school. She's pretty astonishinglyclear about what she what she wants and
what she what she what she thinks, which feels even though she's primarily non

(29:37):
verbal. So I would imagine thatit could not have all been easy.
And the words I said, Ican imagine it. It has not all
been easy. Okay, you know, just the mere fact that used the
word fragility. So tell us alittle bit about your journey getting used to

(30:06):
having a down syndrome child, andthen we're going to touch a little bit
on how she's taught you those lessons, you know, like what kind of
lessons you know? A child witha disability, Okay, and we will
call it a disability has has canteach us, can teach us absolutely.

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The first question was what was itcouldn't have all been easy? I mean
there had to be some difficult moments. There were there were absolutely very difficult
moments and some of the most difficultmoments actually didn't even have to do with
Down syndrome. Some of them hadto do with with with with I don't

(31:03):
even remember the word of English nowin colic colic. She had a terrible
bat of colic for about six monthsin which she screamed all the time,
and I almost went bananas. Imean, I was a single mother at

(31:26):
that point, her father had returnedto Greece, and I was on my
own with my French neighbors, whowere very supportive, but nonetheless I continued
to be a friend a single mother, and that was a very hard time.

(31:47):
I I nearly lost my mind.And then there was, as if
you've looked at the book, youknow as well, an even harder time
where in addition to having Down syndrome, she contracted leukemia cancer childhood cancer,

(32:15):
which is more common among children withDown syndrome than among the general population.
Really, I did not know that, and I think you talk about that
in your Little Peace Coal Journey tothe Edge of the Light about the yes,
yes, journal, the edge ofthe Light. The light based all

(32:37):
about her leukemia, right, Sohow did you handle that? Is she
in remission? Absolutely, she isnot only remission, she is considered to
be cured because they it takes thedoctor's five years to declare a remission.

(33:05):
M hm. And over five yearsyou're declared cured. And it has now
been over much over five years.You realised a contracted leukeinia cancer when she
was one year old, so she'djust gotten over the colic and I was
just starting to become sane again.And then and then there was a routine

(33:35):
test at her school which revealed thatshe it's a very long story, but
I'll be believiate it, that shehad leukemia. And at first my primary
care physician, her primary care physician, said that's not possible. This child

(33:59):
was not leukemia. She has toomuch energy. She doesn't act like a
child, and of leukemia. Leukemicchildren are are are are passive, they're
tired, they're FEFTI, they're they'rethey're not like your child. Your child
is is full of energy. She'san energizer rabbit. My doctor was wrong,

(34:24):
you readily have leukemia. And didshe understand I will terrible journey for
the first For the first six monthsor so after her diagnosis, she wasn't

(34:50):
hospitalized continually. She simply got platelit uh transfusions every week, which took
many hours. We went to thehospital every week, got platelet transfusions,
and went back home and repeated thesame thing the following me. However,

(35:16):
at the same time we were havingtests, awful, awful, prehistoric seeming
tests, bone marrow tests. Imean, they're horrible. They they basically
anesthetized you and and chop into intoyour backbone. It's it's it seems brutal.

(35:42):
It seems it seems something from adifferent age. But they didn't antiquate.
It's antiquated, but it's it's necessaryexactly exactly. Yeah, it seems
utterly antiquated. It seems it seemsbarbaric. How's that word? Barbaric?

(36:08):
Barbaric, barbaric? Thank you,thank you, right, it seems barbaric.
But they needed to do these testsin order to find out what the
percentage of her bukinic cells were,and in the beginning they were quite low.

(36:32):
And they said, you know,children down syndrome are very weird.
Sometimes they have all kinds of bloodanomalies which go away on their own.
So we don't want to start chemotherapyor operate on her until we know which

(36:54):
way this is really going, andso they continue these barbar barrack cast until
lo and behold. A year later, when she was about a year and
a half, she turned out tohave ninety percent leuchemic cells in her blood,

(37:16):
and at that point she had tobe hospitalized instantly, and she was,
and she remained in hospital for ninemonths, eight and a half months.
Wow with No with No wouldnt rakesbecause her immune system was basically exploded

(37:50):
by the by the by the chemo, and she had no immune system at
all, and if somebody coughed infront of her, it could kill her.
So she wasn't allowed out of thehospital, and she continued for eight

(38:15):
and a half months in the hospital, a cycle after cycle. I was
wither the whole time I I met. I managed to stay her night and
day. Basically I stayed with heron a kind of a little armchair bed

(38:43):
at night and in the day.I was with her the whole day trying
to entertain her, except that Ihad friends and family who came and helped
and gave me, you know,an hour off here, an hour off
the hour where I would sort ofwash out of this antiseptic environment and and

(39:10):
and have a have a cappuccino.Before I prepaired to see my daughter,
but nobody wanted to spend a lotof time there. It was kind of
a horrible atmosphere. And so Iwas there most of the time for eight
and a half months. So sheovercame, and she did overcome it.

(39:35):
And and part of the dedication ofit, yes, So so one of
the dedication in the in your bookis uh, it is if her cry
has shortened my workday, her smileis giving me an eternity of joy.
So tell us, tell us thejoy. Tell us one or two lessons
or three lessons that you learned thatfrom someone who never wanted to be a

(39:59):
mother, never wanted to have children. What you know, what are some
of those lessons that that that youcan share with us that would give I
don't want to use the word hopeto other people, but maybe help them
to live that kind of life witha child that has a disability. First

(40:28):
of all, I just feel likeI owe it to you're the seat to
say that she has an extraordinarily beautifultemperament. The nurses a hospital that we
were at would say that they wouldcome into our our room not because they
had to, not because they hadto give her a blood test or they

(40:51):
had to renew her her chemo treatment, but because they wanted their quote happy
fit, because you're in the seat, was so very happy. She would
give high fives from the nurse house. She would giggle and tickle them.

(41:13):
She had extraordinarily she had and shehas an extraordinarily beautiful temperaments. So in
one sense, I got lucky.But it's not just luck. The second
question was so so yeah, likeright, I know that you've she has

(41:38):
taught you and and so, butI think, if I'm reading this right,
you you have learned yourself not tovictimize yourself, but to become part
of what is her normal. AndI think isn't that the inspiring part of

(42:05):
it, that that you know youyou didn't see yourself as oh poor me,
You saw yourself as I was giventhis. And and someone when someone
wrote recently, well, when theyread the book, they said, I
think when you did journey to theedge of the light, I said,
sometimes bad luck is the new goodluck. And the realization of your worst

(42:28):
fears I think is an and therealization of your worst fears may be the
greatest gift you can receive. Andso I think, and correct me if
I'm wrong, that those twenty threeand a half lessons were really each a
gift, a gift to you fromyour dece because I don't think children know

(42:52):
their disability, and so they justknow they don't, and so they're just
who they are. They're true tothemselves who they are. And if you,
as a parent, are willing toaccept that and just love that part,
doesn't it make it easier? Yes, yes it does. And it

(43:15):
really turns out that I have learnedso much more, or I've tried to
learn. I've tried to learn,and I feel like the world can learn
so much more from Euridice. ThenI at least was able to learn from

(43:37):
all of these philosophers and authors whoI studied when I was doing my teach
you the fobon at Stanford, andshe really talk so much. She every
one of those twenty three and ahalf chapters that I into which I divided

(43:59):
my book is a little yet witha little kind of life lesson to put
it, to put it clumsly,something that you taught me. She taught
me to stop waiting my turn,to just to just go for what I

(44:21):
wanted immediately, To not think thefuture was going to be easier than the
past, to stop waiting in line, to stop playing that. What does
that make chapter? Right? Canyou explain that just a little bit stop
waiting your turn or waiting in life? What is? Can you explain that

(44:42):
a little bit more simple? Iactually don't have a perfect recollection of that
chapter, but it's it's it.It is all about not waiting for the
future to come to you and forit to be easier than the past.
To jump on your first opportunity andto it's to seize it and to do

(45:14):
what you want right away, notto not to wait for the perfect opportunity,
which will probably never come. Soit's sort of it's sort of well
here's here's maybe my spin on it. So it's I truly believe that the

(45:36):
only thing the past can do forus is to teach us we learned from
the past and what the future cancan bring to us. Thinking about the
future is not to repeat some ofthe things in the past, but to
bring it all to the present andlive that perfect life. Not perfect,

(45:57):
but live that life in the present. The best, be the best,
we are the best. We canin the present. And you're right,
don't go for that, don't lookfor something to come to you. You
have to make things happen. Andthat, I think is that is that
nomad adventurer kind of in you.And it's it's definitely in your writing.

(46:22):
And so imagine, imagine having allof that hardship because and I will call
it hardship in your life and makingit something beautiful. I mean, shouldn't
we all be doing that? Yeah? Yeah, Which is why I think

(46:49):
that you really see has a lotto say, not only to other disabled
people or the families and friends ofdisabled people, but I think she has
a lot to say to the world. She has she has so many messages

(47:15):
to impart that are by no meansto the handicapped community. Though I have
the greatest respect for the handicap andthe greatest solidarity for the handicapped community.
But my book is not about handicap. It's kind of a school of life

(47:38):
for the book. You know,allow the author, the British author Alan
the Boutaud, came up with thisschool of life idioms, and I think
it's actually kind of appropriate for formy little book about your innency. She

(48:06):
has a lot to impart to theworld in general, not only to disabled
people, not only to the familiesor the friends of disabled people, but
to the world. She she's aguru, she and she teaches you how

(48:30):
to make the most out of lifeand love. And the best part is
your her voice, not just throughthe book, but doing something like this
interview, which I will tell mylisteners is difficult for you because you've made
it very clear you don't all right, well, but you write spectacularly and

(48:54):
you do. But but you arevoice and I think she knows that.
And I think and you're also thevoice of parents who and again I I
don't judge anyone. Everyone has tomake a choice in their life to how

(49:17):
they want to live it. Butfrom someone who is so adamant about being
a parent and a mother and raisingyour daughter on your own, no less.
To fall in love so innocently andso purely with this special person is

(49:42):
just I mean, it's amazing andit inspires me truly. You know.
You hear many parents complain, ohso and so do this, and my
child that? Am I this?Am I that? And then you read
something like the Child who Never Spoke, And you got to ask yourself.

(50:04):
What am I complaining about? SoI hope you will always continue to be
her voice without without a doubt.I think you what you know? He
touches me to the quick. Yep, Nope, absolutely. I would be
a little remiss though, to notmention some means I have read, and

(50:29):
one of them is a Vindication ofLove, Reclaiming Romance for the twenty first
century. I was. I thoughtit was the most incredible, I truly
did. It's just the perfect language, and how you refer to women submissive

(50:52):
women, and how men are portrayeddifferently in their writings and their behavior and
how they're how they're seen differently thanif a woman did that, And so
anyone that wants to read something fascinating, please also read a Vindication of Love,

(51:15):
and then some of your articles,your articles on love and love and
loss, and then Against the Currents, so I read Let's Shut Up about
Sex, and then the Death ofEthos. You're just amazing. I mean,
your writing is so clean and soI mean it's visual, Your words

(51:37):
are visual, and and I knowthat your DC is as as much as
you know that you're lucky. Ithink she's just just as lucky. I
think somebody gave you that gift becausethey knew that you could handle it.
Do you see vasillis at all herdad? No, not at all that

(52:01):
relationship while I don't want to gamutbecause it was beautiful time that I have
no contact with her father whatever,And he doesn't support us, he doesn't
call us, he doesn't he's nocontact at all. Christina, our time
is up. It's been amazing.I thank everyone for listening to this episode

(52:27):
of Becoming the Journey. Keep tuningin to WR seven ten iHeartRadio, and
follow us on Instagram at Becoming theJourney. And please go out and buy
the book The Child Who Never Spoketwenty three and a half Lessons in Fragility.
Thank you, Christina, love it, thank you. Yes, gotta

(52:49):
read her articals. They're amazing.I do have a website if you want
to. If somebody wants to takea look at my articles, Yeah,
that would be it's greatw dot christinaneeringdot net. Christina, start without an
inch. I will put that onthe episode. So everyone have the number

(53:10):
of my article perfect. Yeah,okay, I all right. I would
love it if you all would allspot my book perfect. Bye bye.
You have been listening to Becoming theJourney, hosted by Grace Lavere. Tune
in weekly to hear more conversations thatwill inspire listeners along their life's journey.
The proceeding was a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an

(53:37):
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed