The Whistler's Daughter

As a child, Kippy's father asked her to whistle — quietly testing for the facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy they shared. She never could. But she never stopped trying. That is the heart of The Whistler's Daughter. An inspiring and often humorous memoir about refusing to let a diagnosis define the boundaries of your life, The Whistler's Daughter follows Kippy as she faces doctors' warnings that her physical abilities would become increasingly limited — and responds by learning a new sport nearly every year. Over nearly three decades she learns more than forty: rock climbing, scuba diving, kitesurfing, trapeze, aerial arts, mountain biking — on mountains, oceans, rivers, cliffs, and in the air. She has never considered herself naturally athletic, fearless, or graceful. What she has is curiosity, persistence, and a willingness to be a beginner again and again. She does all of it while building a company, raising three sons, and meeting a run of diagnoses with the same stubborn answer: sign up for one more thing. At sixty-three, she climbs onto the wing of a moving biplane. A powerful reminder that we are more than our prognosis.