This Is Why I D.A.N.C.E.: Discover. Accomplish. Nourish. Create. Embrace.

As a traumatic brain injury survivor, former health care professional, expressive artist, nonprofit creator, and patient of a life-changing condition, Amara Elise Riccio offers her riveting account of the life she created to rise beyond barriers; and how you can too.

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Three weeks before her thirteenth birthday, dancer Amara Elise Riccio was struck by a car and put into a coma. After years of unpredictable obstacles and amazing achievements, she lives to tell a story.

What is happening to me?

Somehow this is now my card

Not the sick or disabled one

But one to fight and write in

There's too much to be done

And strength within

Amara is currently battling a mystery illness that challenges her will each day. Despite her limitations in communication, with her voice, eyesight, bodily motion, and ability to swallow compromised, she has striven to create her own motto: D.A.N.C.E.; to keep herself on the path of her life's dream: empowering others.

In her own words and captivating prose, along with insights from fellow writer and cousin Jessica Giannone, Amara reveals intimate stories of family, friendship, and faith, along with poetry and personal tales of hardship, perseverance, hope, and self-discovery; the life beyond her accident. It's an educational, mystical memoir cultivated by compassionate, courageous cousins cumulatively connecting their creativity, showing us how to dance through life.

Through thought-provoking tidbits of psychology and creative arts, touching upon the health care system, the reality of disabilities, and firsthand experience with debilitating circumstances, Amara manages to reveal to us the elements in our paths that truly matter. It's the powerful perspective on life we all need.

With God's grace and a strong support system of loved ones, Amara is taking grand turns, making courageous leaps, and shaking things up in an unconventional way to give readers an inspiring sense of guidance on how we can Discover, Accomplish, Nourish, Create, and Embrace life fully through. It leaves us pondering and answers the questions we never knew we had.

Deeply perceptive, emotional, uplifting, comforting, and delightfully witty, she inspires the dance in us all.

This is a piece of her journey.