Marjorie Strebe

As the mother of a child with Williams syndrome, Marjie Strebe has lived through some of the typical and survived the atypical challenges that characterized the life of her youngest child. Since she’s been a stay-at-home mom the great majority of Michelle’s life, she was always available and involved with her daughter, the doctors, the schools, the hospitals, and the psychiatric staff.

After tackling the struggles of the day, Marj enjoyed losing herself in the plot of a story she crafted herself. So writing fiction helped her to de-stress. But God started dealing with her about the need to write Michelle’s story. So when Michelle was twelve-years-old, her mother started writing the story of her life – the adventures and struggles; the challenges and difficulties; the experiences few people could relate with, even those parents who were caring for a Williams child.

Since writing fiction helped Marj to de-stress from the daily challenges, she didn’t enjoy sacrificing those precious moments in order to relive each experience by putting it into writing. It wasn’t therapeutic; it was torture. So writing Michelle’s story was the hardest thing she’s ever done. And since she wrote a lot of it as it happened, it took nearly twelve years to write the first edition, and Michelle’s story has been an ongoing adventure in patience; hence, the third (and hopefully, the last) edition of her story.