Vicki Forman gave birth to Evan and Ellie, weighing just a pound at birth, at twenty-three weeks’ gestation. During the delivery she begged the doctors to "let her babies go" — she knew all too well that at twenty-three weeks they could very well die and, if they survived, they would face a high risk of permanent disabilities. However, California law demanded resuscitation. Her daughter died just four days later; her son survived and was indeed multiply disabled: blind, nonverbal, and dependent on a feeding tube. This Lovely Life tells, with brilliant intensity, of what became of the Forman family after the birth of the twins — the harrowing medical interventions and ethical considerations involving the sanctity of life and death. In the end, the longdelayed first steps of a five-year-old child will seem like the fist-pumping stuff of a triumph narrative. Forman’s intelligent voice gives a sensitive, nuanced rendering of her guilt, her anger, and her eventual acceptance in this portrait of a mother’s fierce love for her children. “It would be difficult not to be stirred by Vicki Forman's story; but what makes This Lovely Life so good goes well past story and into idea, with which her book is so rich. The idea of love; of choice; of ambivalence; of imperfection; of purpose: these are all here, in a narrative that is propulsive, startling and vivid, like motherhood itself.” —Meg Wolitzer, author of The Ten-Year Nap “Intimate, compelling, and hopeful—an absolutely important book. —Rachel Simon, author of Riding in the Bus with My Sister “Vicki Forman's This Lovely Life is its own kind of koan--a story about death that is full of life, a story about loss rich with things gained, a story of letting go, while at the same time holding on tightly to what we love best. Spare, bracing, lovely.”—Jennifer Graf Groneberg, author of Road Map to Holland “If such a heartbreaking story must be any parent's to tell at all, I'm thankful that it should fall to such a talented voice as Vicki Forman to bring it to the rest of us. Forman writes with sensitivity and clarity; her love is powerful and her eyes are wide open. This Lovely Life is a beautiful story of loss and love, and ultimately of understanding, one that left me shaken, haunted and deeply moved long after I finished reading.” —Robert Rummel-Hudson, author of Schuyler's Monster "Forman’s enormously affecting memoir…about the drastic disabilities of her extremely premature child poses challenging questions about parenthood and human compassion…. Forman portrays herself (sometimes shockingly) as deeply flawed and forgivingly human. —Publishers Weekly, STARRED "A searing tale of heartache and impressive depth of character" — Kirkus VICKI FORMAN’s work has appeared in the Seneca Review and the Santa Monica Review as well as in the anthologies Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, This Day: Diaries from American Women, and Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. She lives in La Canada, California. 1 I LEARNED ABOUT GRIEF during this time. I learned that no matter the true temperature, grief made the air crisp and cold; that it caused me to drive slowly, carefully; there was very little I could eat. I learned that I didn’t notice things until they flew out at me and that most stories and books and news articles were unreadable, being accounts not of the events themselves, but of me. Of what I had lost and would never have again, of what I had once allowed myself to want, the things I used to love. Of small consolations no longer available. I learned that my heart could stop and start a dozen times a day and that my throat felt so sore and tight I often had to swallow air simply in order to breathe. The world receded; everything took place in slow motion and was viewed as if down the wrong end of a very long telescope. So much was unfamiliar that if I was asked my name, I had to think for long moments. “Grief is a visceral process of disengagement,” a friend said. In my grief, old versions of disembodiment became a cruel joke. You thought that was bad, not being able to walk into a roomful of strangers without disassociating or turning remote and distant? That was nothing. Try this. Try heart-stopping, immobilizing grief. The stages of grief were slippery, I found, the boundaries melded, the order mixed up, confused. I backed up through denial, depression, blame, and acceptance. I did my bargaining and got angry all at once. I discovered, somehow, in my grief, that routine would be my only salvation — the routine of familiar places, the same aisles in the supermarket, programmed drives and walks. The same food, food I knew I could tolerate. The less I had to think about, the fewer decisions, the more I might actually find a way to put one foot in front of the other. I backed my car into a vintage Porsche and crushed in its driver’s-side door. I rented a car while mine was in the shop being repaired. As