Every day there walk anonymously among us people who have had extraordinary experiences. Their very presence serves as a tribute to the strength of the human spirit. That cannot be better illustrated than by this moving account of a young girl who discovers she has a medical condition whose lifelong consequences she could not even imagine. This is her story, right up to the touching moment when a stranger's death brings her renewed hope through the modern magic of a double organ transplant. Her story takes an even more dramatic turn as she discovers her organ donor's identity. As it turns out, her donor, too, had a story.

As the author takes us through her childhood, we relive with her the days when doctors sterilized and reused syringes and the treatment of diseases like hers, diabetes, was somewhat hit and miss. She describes how her early optimism took shape with each small victory-learning to inject a grapefruit with make-believe insulin, celebrating with nurses at her bedside the Beatles' debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. This book brings timely attention to the complexities and consequences of diabetes, a disease becoming more prevalent in our times. It also serves to remind us of the immense medical progress we have achieved over the last few decades.

The legally blind author's tale makes us realize the hardships some people experience and highlights the courage and determination that led her to write her story. A Handful of Rain is an inspiring book which will lift your spirit, make you appreciate your own blessings in life, give you new insight into the marvels of modern medicine, and perhaps make you look at the people around you in a new, more appreciative light.

You will find that this book teaches more than what it may have set out to do. While readers will be introduced, gently and often with humor, to the daily realities of life with diabetes, they will come to the end of the story with a sense of awe at what goes on around us that we who are not blind fail to see. While the author may have embarked upon her autobiography with the goal of providing useful information about her condition, her exceptional writing skill and personal humility turned this account into a work of inspiration and hope that will uplift anyone's spirit.

Carol Ward Wilson was born in Whitewater, Wisconsin in 1953, one of five children. When she was eleven, her family moved to Ohio, where she graduated in 1971 from Hilliard High School. She attended Texas Christian University-Harris College of Nursing from 1971 to 1973. She and her husband Mick married in 1975. They now reside in Peachtree City, Georgia, just south of Atlanta. A Handful of Rain is the author's first book.