He will never have a normal life.

I read my first book at the age of 10 years old. It took me a month to read, it was considered a true victory, it was the Little Prince. I have never stopped reading since.

“He will never have a normal life” said the teacher to my mother at the age of 8. This was after I was thrown out of my first school at the age of 7. “I think it is best that he will go to a special school. where kids with limited abilities can find the right education”. Nobody knew what dyslexia was at the time, not even my parents. But my mother did not send me to a special school, she kept on taking me to doctor after doctor, until she found one who just came back from Stanford after researching kids reading disabilities. I was diagnosed with severe dyslexia and dysgraphia.

This is how I experienced reading for the first 3 years:

30 years later — My reading experience is much better now, although my hand writing is more or less like the picture above. Dyslexia and dysgraphia, from my experience, never go away, you learn to overcome a lot of obstacles, trick your way into choosing words that are easy to spell, draw shapes instead of words, look for the TL;DR in every email.

The improvements come with a lot of hard work. My mother used to take me to an occupational therapist 2 times a week and to a reading therapist another 2 times a week. I hated it! Not seeing my friends in the afternoons, missing out on the A-team and The Smurfs — but my mother did not give up, and I kept improving. With every new teacher, my mother used to go and educate them about dyslexia and dysgraphia and that I am not “retarded” or “stupid” but smart and disabled. The teachers hated it! Having a special kid in a class of 40 kids is a pain in the neck, but my mother did not give up.

She died when I was 16, after 5 years of battling melanoma and brain cancer. She hated the fact that she was leaving me alone to deal with this world that considered me limited, but she had to give up, I did not.

Today I am holding in my hands a book that I have written, 350 pages of words crafted and forged in delightfully painful effort. It is almost unbelievable that this 8 year old boy that almost went to this special school, would be able to write a page, let alone an entire book.

One thing that comes from hardship, if you prevail, is the ability to overcome, to have grit, and to work through challenges. Do not let anyone tell you that you can not achieve something. Believe in your kids, believe in yourself, do not give up.

Dedicated to my mother, Hadassa Shevat (1948–1993).