MARJORIE’S BOOKS
Mom on Wheels:
The Power of Purpose as a Paraplegic parent
Today is a pretty good day to die.
Those were my thoughts as my car hit black ice and spun out of control toward an oncoming truck. As I waited for paramedics to extricate me from the mangled wreck, unable to feel anything below my neck, I pictured my sixteen-month-old son. And decided to live.
So began the most challenging chapter in my life as this overachieving psychologist and single parent, whose life’s work had been to advocate for parents with intellectual disabilities to help them keep custody of their children. My spinal cord injury thrust me into a life as a newly-disabled parent, experiencing first hand the barriers and discrimination I’d witnessed for others.
Between physical therapy rehabilitation, new day-to-day logistics, battles with an insurance company, ongoing physical pain and pain management, I had to start over as a person, an employee and a parent too.
With time, I learned co-parenting 101 with my parents, prioritizing self-care, and-something I’d never done before as an overachiever-learned how to ask for help because parenting is hard work.
I finally accepted about myself what I believed about my former clients, those parents with disabilities: I may roll differently to-and with my son but I already know how to be a good parent.
Book available in French and English
We’ve Got This
We’ve Got This! Essays by Disabled Parents.
In We’ve Got This, thirty parents who identify as Deaf, disabled, neurodiverse, or chronically ill discuss the highs and lows of their parenting journeys and reveal that the greatest obstacles lie in other people’s attitudes. The result is a moving, revelatory, and empowering anthology that celebrates the richness of disabled parenting in the twenty-first century.
I am a contributor to We’ve Got This! Sharing my story as a single mom to a one-year-old who became paraplegic following a car accident. I am honoured to be sharing my story alongside all of these amazing parents.
Our Yellow Brick Road:
An Anthology of Humans Who Believe in the Impact of Storytelling
Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, my Yellow Brick Road has been filled with several challenges. In my story, the hurricane is a car accident that rendered me paraplegic. I struggled for many years until I started to share my stories!
Storytelling gave me an interesting perspective on parenting, disability and life as a whole. Through impactful and inspirational speaking engagements, I have learned to share about how certain events shape our perspective, the lessons we can gain and how we connect with others.
And that led me to winning North America’s Inspirational Speaking Competition in 2021!
Part of the prize was a book deal.
Speakers had inspired me and had been my friends on my Yellow Brick Road to Recovery and I felt this prize was theirs too. Our Yellow Brick Road could ONLY be an anthology of powerful stories by award-winning speakers who understand and believe in the impact storytelling can have.
These inspiring humans have taken countless stages to share their own experiences and revelations with audiences whose lives have had no choice but to be changed. This anthology is vulnerable, surprising, and relatable, composed of pain and triumph, health challenges and resilience, deep depression and pure joy, bullying and heartfelt kindness.
From brutal truths to prove that what you seek has been inside you all along, Our Yellow Brick Road requires nothing more from its readers than an open heart and a full box of tissues.
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