Fall and Recovery: Raising Children with Disabilities through Lessons Learned in Dance

Special educator Joanne De Simone bears all in this raw and transformative memoir that captures how she used lessons of modern dance in her journey through motherhood with two children with disabilities.

When the pediatrician places the measuring tape around her infant’s head and notes, “His head is a little small,” Joanne knows that motherhood won’t be as she had dreamt. Even as a special educator, Joanne isn’t prepared to raise a child with a life-limiting brain malformation. Nor is she ready for the compounded pain and alienation that comes when her second son is diagnosed with autism. But the struggle to balance her sons’ medical and educational challenges drives Joanne to reconnect with the lessons she learned as a modern dancer—and there she finds enlightenment.

Inspired by her experience performing José Limón’s There Is a Time, based on Ecclesiastes 3, each chapter of Fall and Recovery details a dance lesson and the dichotomy of parenting children with disabilities. Over time, Joanne discovers that surviving motherhood isn’t a matter of strength, bravery, or faith. It’s a matter of linking your past experiences and creating your own purpose. It’s realizing that we live simultaneously in love and grief. In the end, dance teaches Joanne not only how to move freely through pain but also how to fall and recover.

Joanne De Simone is a graduate of Hunter College with degrees in dance and special education. After dancing professionally with companies including José Limón and Dianne McIntyre, she dedicated her life to teaching children with disabilities and supporting their families. Currently, Joanne is a special education advocate for the Alliance of Private Special Education Schools of North Jersey. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Exceptional Parent Magazine, and the Rumpus, and she is a contributing author to Barriers and Belonging: Personal Narratives of Disability. Joanne lives in West Orange, New Jersey, with her husband and sons.