Anne-Dauphine Julliand has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is A Special Day.
Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand
Summary
Thaïs is almost two. Like most well-loved children, she is happy. She laughs as she runs on the beach. But her footprints in the sand, with toes turned out, tell a different story. Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand relates the overwhelming tragedy experienced by a family as a result of a genetic disorder. A true tale told by a mother, it's the story of a little girl, of how family, friends, and the medical community united to define life by its beauty rather than its length. On the day Thaïs turns two, her mother, the author Anne-Dauphine Julliand, learns that her child has an untreatable genetic disease, the rarest of the rare, a silent disorder that will slowly paralyze her daughter's nervous system and kill her. Metachromatic leukodystrophy - MLD - is the diagnosis. There is no cure. While the disease may be grim, neither this book nor the people in it are. Grace, dignity, and most of all love mark the lives of all those involved in the care of Thaïs. Julliand does not play down the pain of her child or of her family, or the exhaustion, discouragement, or burden each of them carries. She promises her daughter a full life - not a life like other children have - but a happy life, a life of love. Thaïs's family and the medical staff around her fight to provide comfort and efficient care, to conserve her dignity, to give her love, to add life to days when "we cannot add days to life."
©2011 Editions Les Arenes Paris (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. English-language translation © 2013 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
A Special Day
Summary
February 29th is a date that comes into existence just once every four years. It is also the birthday of Thais - author Anne-Dauphine Julliand's darling daughter - who died of a genetic disease. Thais lived just shy of her fourth birthday. She had a short life but good one. As this special day is about to reappear on her calendar for the first time since her daughter passed away, Anne-Dauphine struggles with how to mark this momentous occasion. She wants to live fully on this special day: Thais would have been eight years old. Vivid memories of life with her daughter begin to blend with the present every gesture, every word evokes a buried memory, arouses laughter or tears. Yet as the date of her daughter's birthday approaches, she knows she must not lose sight of the family who needs her now: her sons Gaspard and Arthur, and Azylis, her other daughter who is also sick. Anne-Dauphine's message remains simple, true, and strong: We all need to be loved and we all need to be happy despite our ordeals. This is both lesson in happiness and a wonderful love story. A Special Day is an honest, inspirational tale that has touched the hundreds of thousands of lives. It will leave the listener breathless with its beauty.
©2013 Éditions Les Arènes Paris, 2013, First Published in the United States in 2015 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., Translation 2015 Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. (P)2015 Audible Inc.