Less than a week after the birth of her second child, former Yazoo City resident Carolyn Cooper began to wonder if there might be something “wrong” with her new baby.
The story of that week in 1966 and the disappointments, struggles, and successes that followed are now recounted in Cooper’s recently published memoir, Untethered: Growing Up With My Autistic Son.
Cooper, a 1960 graduate of Yazoo City High School and the second of five children born to Owen and Elizabeth Cooper, began working on the memoir 10 years ago. She said she hoped it might bring comfort and insight to families dealing with special-needs children.
Cooper’s second child, a son named Mark, was born with severe autism and intellectual disability. Her memoir traces Mark’s journey from infancy to a happy, though limited, adulthood. And it describes her own evolution from traditional wife and mother to successful professional woman.
Cooper’s book has been described as “excruciatingly honest,” by Rebecca Dossett, an autism specialist in Birmingham, Ala.
“Her account is clear-eyed, ranging from beautiful to tragic and back again,” Dossett said. “All who wish to know themselves better should read this book.”
More information about the memoir is available at Cooper’s website (carolyncooper.org).
Following graduation from Yazoo City High School, Cooper earned a bachelor’s degree at Baylor University in Waco, Tex. After raising her own two sons, Mark and his older brother David, Cooper earned a doctoral degree in nursing at the University of Virginia, and went on to teach nursing at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
As an academic, she wrote “The Art of Nursing: A Practical Introduction,” a text that is still in use 16 years after publication.
Retired now, Cooper still lives near Chapel Hill, but visits Mississippi several times a year to spend time with Mark, who lives in a group home at the Baddour Memorial Center in Senatobia. Her other son is an attorney in Atlanta.
