Eye Can Write: A memoir of a child's silent soul emerging

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This topic of conversation ran for many months, while other questions asked of Jonathan didn’t get the answers that were expected.

ELSEWHERE, Jonathan has revealed his frustration with the assumptions that are made about people with disabilities. Jonathan is inspiring, articulate, a poet and enabled me to catch a glimpse of what it might be like to live in someone else’s story. Jonathan’s account also highlights what the church in the UK has long forgotten or perhaps never knew – and that is the concept of family salvation. The queue that formed after Jonathan's presentation, at the book sales table, was the longest in the whole conference! This book is an absolute revelation to me both from her parents' point of view and anxieties and their daughter's.

It is painstaking work — a ten-word sentence takes around a minute to spell out — but what emerges is strikingly articulate. The introduction, written by Jonathan's mum, shows the medical problems that challenged Jonathan's early years, many times coming close to dying. Look at children as individuals and think about what works for them, encouraging everyone to find their voice. He wrote the story in 2016, aged ten, in an attempt to put into words a dream he had had after becoming seriously ill — an experience which others might describe as a brush with death, but which he cherishes as a taste of heaven.

As we read he moves the scene at just the right pace so that we remain immersed in the landscape as he introduces us to his very believable characters. We truly cannot underestimate, devalue or deem something impossible no matter a person’s physical, neurological, vocal, etc abilities. I am not responsible for the republishing of the content found on this blog on other Web sites or media without my permission. The first part of the book is written from his mother’s perspective, telling the story of his traumatic birth after a car accident, her battle with medics and schools to allow him access to learning.This is why we are committed to supporting charities that are fighting to raise awareness of a child’s education rights. It was wonderful to unlock this means of communication, it was basic but it meant they could talk with their son and he could respond. Following my lead, we slow-waltzed around the board, synchronised to the music of the word in my head. This memoir provides a lot of food for thought and I only have appreciation for what Jonathan and his family have gone through to get where they are now.

The list of life-threatening difficulties he has endured is shockingly long, as is the number of medical interventions and trips to hospital he had needed. In this chapter, Jonathan’s world is expanding through a 500-word story for BBC Radio 2, the writing of poetry, and holidays, along with the inevitable frustrations and setbacks. And we should not see the broken body as an excuse to refuse proper education to creative minds that are trapped within.Every time my son had a big upheaval in his health, spent any time away from school, or in hospital, it meant/means retracing his steps, re-learning some simple skills and re-building all the securities that are lost.

I found the first couple of chapters difficult to process, whereby Jonathan's traumatic first few months of life are presented by his mother. His mum and dad faced them with a strong faith, a dose of humour and an unending love, that carries them all through. My thinking about suffering and the way that God is able to transform difficult situations is something that was, maybe, a bit of a theory, and it has become something which is much more personal — and I suppose I can speak from within that experience, as well. He grew up in a small town in Gloucestershire and he told The Guardian that he has very fond memories of growing up, depsite not being able to speak. The most poignant thing that I will remember is Jonathan's outlook on special schools, based on his own experience.In chapter three Jonathan tells us about a beautiful field of long grass, where He was next to Jonathan. He was “unlocked” thanks to a combination of Mrs Bryan’s dogged perseverance — “I knew he was in there”, as she told The Times recently — and a perspex board, held up today by his carer, Pippa. Jonathan refers to the choice he was given, to stay to meet the gardener, or to go back to his fragile, sick body, back to “my mind trapped in my silence; back to the family I loved. We couldn’t be prouder to be his publisher and I personally couldn’t be prouder to say that I’m his editor. It’s for us to help him to live life in all its fullness here, but it’s not for us to hold on so tightly that it gets to the point where he needs to go, and we can’t let him.