I developed this guidebook and organized the chapters based on the different aspects of being the parent of a special-needs child. Each chapter offers Navigation Points marked by compasses, and lighthouses illuminating Laura's Insights. In this edition of the book, I consider those universal and recurring questions and weave them into a practical guide. I made this edition of Uncommon Voyage a vehicle for your story, your voyage—how you see it, tell it, and are informed by it. I lay the groundwork in a brief narrative that describes my personal journey. I conceived the voyage in nautical terms thinking about a ship's fulcrum—how the shifts in a family's life are like the swinging pieces of a mobile, relocating to attain balance like a vessel rocking on the sea. As changes come along, we continually recalibrate our internal and external compasses to balance and to be able to pivot when necessary. Uncommon Voyage does not address individual conditions. I am relating to our universal experience. No matter the diagnosis—autism to schizophrenia to cerebral palsy—some things belong to all of us. Shock, ambivalence, chafing between doing too much and doing too little, grief, worry, guilt, living with shattered dreams—we have common experience even within the differences. I hope there is enough here to help you feel less alone while you fight to give your child the best chance at a future of promise and discovery. The miracles are not what you expect but they are there.

Laura Shapiro Kramer currently lives on Cape Cod. She was the Chair of the Board of Resources for Children with Special Needs (now INCLUDEnyc) for ten years. Laura is Founder and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Greater New York (IYAGNY) and she serves on the Advisory Board of New York City Outward Bound (NYCOBC). Her travel articles about Iran and Tasmania appeared in The Forward. Laura was Project Director of the Albyon Project for the New York Foundation for the Arts.