A Love Without Bounds:
Luca and Jill’s Story

Pitched, photographed and co-written for the San Francisco Chronicle

Jill McDonald, 46, has built her life around caring for her five-year-old son, Luca Amine-Hadir. Born in San Francisco, Calif. at the height of the pandemic, Luca lives with autism and a severe form of intractable epilepsy. Jill and Luca’s father, Najib, pursued every possible medical treatment, including a 16-hour brain surgery at 18 months old, which lessened the frequency of Luca’s seizures but failed to stop them.

Jill wants people to see Luca the way any parent sees their child. “I don’t think there’s a difference,” she said. “The love for a child, it knows no bounds.”