Smithfield mother’s book details virtues she learned from her children
“Lessons From the Broken X: Ten Virtues My Sons with Fragile X Syndrome Have Helped Me Practice” by Jenny Susa
Smithfield author Jenny Susa sits with her sons Liam (left) and Lucas (right). Susa said her sons inspired her to write “Lessons From the Broken X: Ten Virtues My Sons with Fragile X Syndrome Have Helped Me Practice.” Courtesy of Jenny Susa.
By Jennifer Garofalo
For the Observer-Reporter
newsroom@observer-reporter.com
A Smithfield mother hopes to inspire others going through challenging times with her book, “Lessons From the Broken X: Ten Virtues My Sons with Fragile X Syndrome Have Helped Me Practice.”
Using biblical virtues, Jenny Susa writes about how she’s overcome struggles and strengthened her faith while raising two sons with Fragile X Syndrome, an inherited condition that causes varying degrees of developmental delays.
Each chapter of the book is devoted to a different virtue. The first chapter is on the love Lucas, 15, and Liam, 4, teach their mother daily.
“They’ve helped me to grow my love through not only caring for them … but toward other people as well,” Susa said.
She said her sons’ struggles – and sometimes looks from strangers who don’t understand their challenges – remind her to extend love to others, “because we never know what they are facing.”
“(My sons) have shown me a lot about not having inner judgement about what anybody else may appear to be,” she said.
Patience is another keystone virtue in the book.
Susa said she’s developed a stronger sense of it through her children, both of whom are behind the typical developmental milestones in some areas. Lucas, she said, was nonverbal until he was 7. And while Liam talks more at his young age, his speech is slow, she said. The boys also have delays in their fine and gross motor skills.
“You have to develop patience to wait for those things, and manage the behaviors that you might not have chosen,” Susa said.
After the birth of her son Lucas, Susa said she learned she carried a pre-mutation of Fragile X Syndrome. The condition can carry through generations, she said, until it becomes a full mutation as it did with Lucas.
“We learned about it when he was born, and that’s the way it is for a lot of people,” she said.
When their son Liam was born, a blood test revealed to Susa and her husband that he, too, had Fragile X Syndrome.
While the lessons she learned from her sons inspired the book, Susa said its faith-based approach offers lessons and inspiration for anyone going through trying times.
“This book is for anybody who’s facing any difficulty of any kind,” she said.
“So many people have told me that (the lessons) are not something that don’t apply … if you don’t have special needs kids,” she said. “To them, it’s been helpful for all the daily stresses, and it’s helped them have a new perspective on how to handle those things.”
Susa hopes to publish a follow up book about self-care and healthy habits – “All things I learned when I became a mom,” she said.
“I have a passion for that – moms often are taking care of everybody else and everything else, and we neglect our own self-care,” she said.
“Lessons From the Broken X: Ten Virtues My Sons with Fragile X Syndrome Have Helped Me Practice” is currently available on Amazon as a paperback or for the Kindle. Susa is hopeful she may expand its reach by selling it through other carriers in the future.
On Saturday, March 5 from 10 a.m. to noon, Susa will be at the German-Masontown Public Library, 104 S. Main St., Masontown to sell and sign her book.