Silence and Seizure (Parenting Through Complexity)

Silence and Seizure is a memoir about raising a son with a rare epilepsy syndrome—about the fear of seizures and the fear of unknown futures.

The story starts when Christine Stewart-Nuñez’s plan for a stable life disintegrates. She chases a diagnosis for her son Holden’s odd behavior and lapses in language, and she watches her marriage to Holden’s father end, understanding these changes through the lens of illness and its silences.

Seizing in ditches, apple-picking, appetizing shards of glass, a Picasso at the Tate, midnight ambulances, panic attacks at 37,000 feet, and mini-ninjas. Epilepsy impaired Holden, but for a time, Christine’s lack of knowledge created a barrier that disabled him. As she learns to be an advocate, her parenting process begins to parallel her artistic practice: observe, research, reflect, create, revise. With the wisdom of disabled writers serving as touchstones for reflection, Silence and Seizure captures how the lens of disability helped Christine frame the nuances of her experience as she developed tactics for living a more complex life where both mother and son can flourish.