“My heart sank, and I begged her not to go. My premonition was right in front of me. ‘Please, you have to come home…I’m hearing noises coming out of Monica’s room.’ I found myself breaking down her door. She was grey and purple, her fingers were clenched closed. To our horror, we saw her ‘works’ by her bed.”
“She had only ever seen once in her career. My world completely stopped. I had to quit all my activities. I was separated from everyone. And just when I thought there might be light at the end of the tunnel, we got more life changing news. I bet you’ve never heard someone wanting to go to school so badly, but I did. I just wanted to feel normal again.”
“He was just a rag doll — he didn’t seem to have hardly any muscles or fat on him. But I know with Cecilee by his side, Kai will be OK.”
“When the same people who told you that you ruined your life are smiling ear to ear at your baby shower a few months later, it’s hard.”
“‘Butterflies fly mom. This butterfly can’t do that,’ was his obvious statement to me, asking him not to do what I inherently knew what was coming…”
“I looked away from what I was doing, over the mess of dirty children with fingernails that needed to be clipped, and asked her what she meant. This girl. She’s young. And she was so spot-on that I started to cry a little.”
“Sobriety is truly society’s best kept secret.”
“We vowed to love each other ‘in sickness and in health.’ Little did we know how vividly those vows would be tested. I became acutely ill. I remember running out of a patient’s room to throw up. I felt as though I was the one who ought to be in the hospital bed. I was diagnosed with a total dysfunction of my autonomic nervous system. Illness has taken away much, but it has taught me even more.”
“We officially got the great news and shouted it loud for all to hear. We were on cloud 9. Everything was fun and exciting. Until it wasn’t.”
“When the day got here, even I was unaware of what was going on. I was just as shocked as he was.”
