Few people openly discuss the mourning and residual grief that goes into learning about your child having a special need. It is hard enough to be a parent, but an added burden is thrown onto that pile: who is to blame when no one is at fault? What does one do when given a diagnosis? Most importantly, how do you deal with these massive feelings while a little person is depending on you? Exploring the ethics of feeling guilty when a person believes they shouldn’t have the right or deserve the space to do so, Not A Wisher By Nature wrestles with feelings of anger, guilt, joy, and learning to embrace the situation a family has been handed. Not A Wisher delves into an intimate portrait of life with a small child displaying confusing behavior, asking others to come in and walk with an average mom trying her best to parent a child others do not always understand. Described as “part research paper, part Mom memoir,” Not A Wisher By Nature is a self-described “weird grief journey” purposefully sought when learning of and about a child’s autism diagnosis during the COVID lockdown. It is an earnest peek into the life of a mom who reflects on how she got to where she is, and where she goes from here with a special little human. Megan R. Stafford has a master’s in Bioethics from the Berman Institute in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as well as a bachelor’s in nursing with over a decade of nursing experience. She would love for people with special needs children to relate while dually reaching out to others who do not have personal experience with special needs but want to understand what others go through every day. This book is also part love letter to anyone who works with special needs individuals, helping all of us in our daily lives.