LJ Herman is a former editor at Love What Matters and lives in Colorado. LJ is a concert, ticket and technology enthusiast. He has seen the Dave Mathews Band over one hundred times and counting.
‘I blacked out. ‘I’ve died, haven’t I?’ I couldn’t see anything but bright white light. I lifted my head. My airbag had deployed. You weren’t beside me anymore.’
“I lost control of my car. You stopped to help me. I felt safer as you stood by my driver’s side window. That changed. In a split second, I saw your smile turn to concern as a semi came over the hill.”
‘I opened the gate to drive my mower out, and there he was. Spinning donuts on my lawn.’: Army wife thankful for friendship with neighbor, ‘Ari reminds me there are still good people in this world’
“This is my neighbor, Ari. He knows my situation, with Matt being deployed and everything that’s on my plate. He’s the one that calls when it looks like things aren’t going well over here; the one that wheels my trash to the curb if I forget; the one that mows my lawn when he has time.”
‘Our daughter was referred to as a number, I still remember that number to this day. I dropped to my knees and cried and begged and pleaded.’
“I felt so guilty, why couldn’t my body handle being pregnant?”
‘Stephanie, our daughter is defective.’ Her father left us after learning of her diagnosis. I wondered how the rest of the world would accept her.’: Single mom raises daughter with Down syndrome
“He reminisced about how he and his friends in school used to make fun of people with Down syndrome and scream across the playground calling them the ‘R’ word. He continued to state, ‘People will look at Hannah and feel sorry for us, and then they will blame this on me.’”
‘I screamed ‘Do you need to pee?’ at my 4-year-old during her game. She said, ‘No,’ then peed her pants. Couldn’t help but respect her dedication to the game.’
“We’re two weeks into soccer season. Practice is on Tuesday afternoons, so we can have dinner at 3 p.m. or 10 p.m. My 4-year-old listens to her soccer coach better than she’s EVER listened to me in the history of her life, and I’m trying really hard not to be bitter about that.”
‘When we’ve been told ‘sorry, this table’s full,’ is when we shine best. When we’ve been left out. That’s when we shine.’
“That’s when get out our hammer and nails and build a NEW table and include EVERYONE who has ever been left standing on the outside of the circle begging for an invitation.”
‘I answered the phone. ‘Anne?’ No, this is her daughter.’ ‘Oh, I didn’t know she had a daughter.’ Did my mom not talk about me? Was I not good enough for her?’: Woman recounts relationship with her mother
“When she asked how far along I was, I told her, ‘just 3 weeks.’ She responded with, ‘Wow, you’re really on top of things.’ I felt like I loved Grace more? What was wrong with me? I didn’t tell anyone, not even my husband.”
‘It took both of these trucks to get your Amazon order delivered today.’ That simmered in my brain for a while. ‘April Fools!’: Woman plays prank on husband, ‘Honey, they are empty’
“I buy all of our household goods on Amazon. We typically get a box or two every week, but sometimes it’s more. My husband has made comments about how many boxes we get. I thought, ‘Now wouldn’t it be funny if he came home and there were boxes all over the place!’ I started saving boxes.”
‘This is how her ‘boyfriend’ shows her he loves her. He is on the run. Her children are in CPS custody. Our family is devastated.’: Mom shares daughter’s drastic condition to warn other girls who are ‘headed in this direction’
“This is my middle daughter, Jessica. She is on life support as a result of Domestic Violence. Her body is covered with bruises, her head has large knots, and she was strangled to death. We are waiting to see if we will have our beautiful lady back.”
‘I hear Bon Jovi say, ‘You dropped something! It’s stuck to your foot.’ I turned around. Was it a black handkerchief? No… What was that?’
“I was going to say, ‘It’s not mine!! I have Tonsillitis.’ But who was I kidding? It was the size of a parachute, and it was mine. When I left the house, I grabbed old jeans that I whipped off before a shower yesterday, but had neglected to take my underwear out of.”