Betty Rudd Books
Ridgecrest, CA, USA
Introduces
A Path Called Tiffany
A Memoir of Raising a Special Child
by Charlotte Blackmon Collins
626-622-8608
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About the Book
This is the deeply spiritual story of Charlotte and her daughter Tiffany who was born healthy but developed a brain tumor at age 3. After a childhood of epileptic seizures, failed treatment, and the divorce of her parents, Tiffany had surgery at age 13 to remove the tumor. She received 20 days of radiation that destroyed the tumor. But the radiation treatments also caused brain damage that slowly robbed Tiffany of mental and physical functions. Over the next 30 years, Charlotte’s efforts to give her daughter the most full and happy life possible, in spite of Tiffany’s many and growing disabilities, is the story told in this memoir. Charlotte, a Buddhist, called on spiritual resources of both Eastern and Western traditions to guide her in helping her daughter as she came to understand care giving as her spiritual path. This is a very personal, painfully honest, and deeply compassionate account of caring for an intellectually disabled child, including all of the tragedies, joys, and day-to-day challenges of a remarkable and finally rewarding journey.
About the Author
Charlotte Blackmon Collins grew up on the U.S. Naval base at China Lake, CA where her dad, Albert Blackmon, was an engineer, and her mother Betty Rudd Blackmon was a homemaker. Charlotte graduated from Ridgecrest's Burroughs High School in 1965. She later earned a B.A. in American Studies and an M.A. in Media Studies from Cal State Los Angeles. For many years, while caring for Tiffany, she taught as an adjunct instructor at Pasadena City College and then for a decade was a Lecturer at the University of California, Irvine. She and Tiffany lived in Sierra Madre, CA, from 1982 to 2014. However, she says the most significant experience of her life was raising her daughter who had developmental disabilities, who passed away in 2014. She has written a book about that experience. Her daughter Tiffany is the subject of this book.
A Path Called Tiffany: A Memoir of Raising a Special Child
ISBN-13: 978-1-7340074-0-4
Available at Red Rock Books, Ridgecrest, CA
And on Amazon
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