Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand ─ A Mother's Memoir

“Add life to days when we cannot add days to life.”

Thais is almost two. Like most well-loved children, she is happy. She laughsas she runs on the beach. But her footprints in the sand, with toes turned out,tell a different story. Two Small Footprints in the Wet Sand relatesthe overwhelming tragedy experienced by a family as a result of a geneticdisorder.

A true tale told by a mother, it’s the story of a little girl, offamily, friends, and the medical community united to define life by its beautyrather than its length. On the day Thais turns two, her mother, the author Anne-Dauphine Julliand,learns that her child has an untreatable genetic disease, the rarest of therare, a silent disorder that will slowly paralyze her daughter’s nervous systemand kill her. Metachromatic leukodystrophy—MLD—is the diagnosis. There is nocure.

While the disease may be grim, neither this book nor the people in it are.Grace, dignity, and most of all love mark the lives of all those involved inthe care of Thais. Julliand does not play down the pain of her child or of herfamily, or the exhaustion, discouragement, or burden each of them carries. Shepromises her daughter a full life—not a life like other children have—but ahappy life, a life of love. Thais’s family and the medical staff around herfight to provide comfort and efficient care, to conserve her dignity, to giveher love, to “add life to days when we cannot add days to life.”