“They get sad and say, ‘but you’re so young!’ You never truly know what people are going through. I had family members tell me, ‘We’re sorry for not visiting, but it was too hard to see you go through this.’ Or that seeing me would make it ‘all too real.’ It is real.”
“‘Yeah, it will be nice out, you can wear a dress.’ It didn’t occur to me an adult would look at my 5-year-old child and think wearing a dress was inappropriate. She was told she needed to leave class and go to the nurse’s office. The nurse told her, ‘She needed to cover her body.'”
“I questioned whether I’d ever have boyfriends, if someone would ever love me enough to marry me. I was weird looking. I was different. I kept telling myself I didn’t need kids. Then, I met a man and my life did a 180. I wanted a family and kids so badly.”
“I’m now a successful and contributing member of society, with a picture-perfect life. However, looks can be deceiving – because I had a secret.”
“Easter is about waiting. I know, that sounds absurd. This is a holiday about a Friday free from work and fake grass you’ll be finding around your house for the remainder of the year. It’s about Peeps and your people. A guy on a cross and a guy in a (rather scary) bunny suit. Jesus waited 3 days; it took me 33 years.”
“Who could I trust to tell? I tried calling my mom, to no avail. She was cold and distant. It hurt. After my appointment, I came home, threw on Marvin Gaye’s ‘Let’s Stay Together,’ and danced around the house with my daughter. I was going to be a mother. I was keeping her.”
“We’re broke. We’re $100 thousand in debt.’ He sent it to an online ‘camgirl.’ He is a porn addict, and has been since before he met me. I sat stunned, staring at him. Today is the one-year anniversary of the day my life fell apart.”
“We walked quietly to the room. We found two seats and moved them close to the bed. You think you will say the right things, but you don’t in those moments. I was speechless.”
“The hairs on my neck stood up for the first time. After picking my daughter up from school, I got a text message from my husband, a principal. ‘We’re in lockout,’ it said. It was unprecedented. Suddenly, it felt serious.”
“Our normally bouncy Shiloh was quiet and only wanted Daddy. She just wanted to be still. At only 2 years old, she couldn’t verbalize her feelings. We couldn’t help her understand what was happening. She could sense it was something big, and that all eyes were on her.”
