“When our kid’s giggles don’t make us pause and say a quick prayer of thanks, when our spouse touches the small of our back and we can’t feel that quick burst of love, or when we can’t see the presence of the divine in the nearby wheat field, the swaying palm trees, or the mountains, it’s time to create a pause.”
“Autism makes you choose things. It makes you look at your life and decide what matters—what you’re willing to work for and sweat for and defend and build. Through all the chatter and the plates and the food, we told this boy that here, in this house with this table and this family, he matters. He matters.”
“This newborn isn’t here to please others. She’s here to join OUR family.”
“I asked my daughter why she thought Amanda was my girlfriend. She said, ‘Because you are always together, and you look like you love her.’ That was it. We were official and my kids adored her.”
“Sleeping in hospital chairs, riding with our child in the back of an ambulance, learning to understand a non-verbal child…we wouldn’t change it for anything.”
“He was the manifestation I had conjured up in my mind to give me something to survive for when I was out there in the desert all those hopeless nights. Motherhood came to me when it did, to save me.”
“‘Metastasized? Doesn’t that mean…’ Yes, it does. It had already spread. How did this happen? What stage was it? Was he going to be okay? They could not give me any answers.”
“I must use every last bit of my willpower not to pull you back into my arms, plop your almost bigger than me body on my lap, and rock you and sing to you.”
“This adventure-filled life I’m living with the people I love is the kind of pure sh*t, of the highest carat, most people only dream about. But it’s mine. They are mine.”
“I kept all my feelings to myself for years before I talked to someone about it. I experienced flashbacks and intrusive thoughts and felt as though no one would understand because my babies were fine. But underneath, I was sinking.”
