“She had backed her sister into a corner with both sides blocked. Before we changed our parenting, I would have yelled, spanked, and heaped on shame. Now, I had to do something else. ‘I won’t let you hurt your sister. I will help you get control of yourself.’”
“Not once had I ever logged into anything of his. I never thought I had a reason to. Our relationship was secure. I was secure. I noticed his email was open. To this day, I am still not sure what made me click on his open email. I like to think it was my grandma looking down, trying to save me from the worst mistake of my life.”
“The deadly bacterial infection spread to my heart. The machine next to my bed started beeping wildly. I remember the fluorescent lights burning my eyes. The beeps kept getting louder, louder. My mother flew over, piling blankets over me. Though my mother was not calm this time, I breathed her in. That’s all I remember. No pain.”
“The moment I’m at home alone with the thoughts of my divorce the urge to drink alone at home begin. There’s a reason I’m always out and about, why my social calendar is booked, and why I like getting away and going out of town on the weekends. It is because I have to.”
“I hope you never get that phone call at work. That desperate plea from your child to ‘come get me now.’ The call where your heart drops into your stomach and you have no idea what you are walking in to. I would much rather be at my desk.”
“What if you go home today and notice she’s still angry, frustrated, and (ridiculously) quick to argue. What if, instead of choosing to join her chaos, you choose to help settle it?”
“I remember walking into the church on a warm June day and seeing my husband’s casket at the end of the aisle, draped with the American flag. Like so many of us before you, you gained membership into a club nobody wants to join, and on top of that, the whole world is watching. I promise you will come out of this on the other side one day.”
“The harsh reality is I won’t be around forever. One day I’ll pass away just like Kobe Bryant, but his memory, just like our videos, will live on. I hope one day my kids will look back at this footage and remember, without a doubt, this dad absolutely loved his boys.”
“’She has a few markers that are consistent with Down syndrome.’ I felt like someone told me my entire family had just died. I felt like I was in a nightmare. ‘I’m not equipped to handle this.’ I listened to my nurse talk about her twin brother with Down syndrome. I couldn’t believe it. That was the first moment where I felt, ‘Maybe I can do this.’”
“I remember being so excited for my due date. Then we went to the doctor and saw our baby, but no heartbeat. Suddenly, it was over. My jeans fit again. I stored the congratulatory letters in a box. Friends told me to ‘move on.’ Weeks later, I was shopping when a woman pushing a newborn in a carriage walked by. I started to cry. Another woman turned around and gently smiled. ‘It is so tough. 20 years later, I still wonder what that child would have been like.’ Tears fell from my eyes.”
