The Picture Wall: One Woman’s Story of Being (His) (Her) Their Mother

For years, her son kept a secret. A big secret. The bombshell, delivered shortly after he left for college, left author C.A. Gibbs questioning everything. What was real? Through fear, anxiety, faith, loss, and grief, Gibbs shares the bittersweet journey of discovering that her adult child isn’t—and maybe hasn’t ever been—the person she thought. In The Picture Wall: One Woman’s Story of Being His Her Their Mother, Gibbs lifts the curtain on life as the parent of a child who lives outside societal norms and expectations. From her earliest desire of wanting nothing more than to be a mother, to facing her own life and death medical diagnosis before it was safe to get pregnant, to the self-doubt and push-back from others when she expressed concern over her toddler’s development, Gibbs finally comes to terms with the fact that the picture-perfect life displayed in her scrapbooks and on her family picture wall wasn’t reality. At least it wasn’t the full picture.