“On my son’s birthday, I laid on the floor, belly-down, with my hands on my chest to force myself not to hyperventilate. Minutes later, I rejoined the party with a smile on my face. ‘I am fine,’ I told myself.”
‘I had one job: protect my children. The next day he was gone and there was no way to get him back. I felt myself slipping away from reality.’
‘I lounged on the couch, eating fried food and Oreos. I binge watched TV shows. To be honest, I disappeared from the normal world.’
“Ever since my breast reduction, my cancer diagnosis, my husband accepting a new job, packing up the house to move, staying 6 months and moving right back, I haven’t wanted to move an INCH. Then, just like that, my season of rest was over.”
‘It could be worse.’ Yes. It could be worse. No, I didn’t lose my child. But our children, my child, have lost a lot.’
“Some of you are screaming at me right now, ‘WE GET IT – YOU HAVE A SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD.’ But I wonder still, do you get it? We don’t know if we will ever get to hear him say ‘I love you.'”
‘A stranger put hands on my child. When my 2-year-old son pushed hers, I immediately said I was sorry. She ignored my apology. It’s wrong, and it’s not okay.’
“I went home and cried. His high-five was left unmet as the other mother shooed him away and said to her toddler, ‘You don’t have to touch him, honey.’ There’s no way that woman could’ve known, but the day before she swatted at my son, he was diagnosed with autism.”
‘Please don’t blame yourself, Mom.’ He wrote his goodbye letter. How could I have missed this?’: Mom loses son to suicide after meth addiction, sees ‘amazing signs’ from him
“He was standing in the driveway looking very frazzled. ‘You know the one thing you told me never to do?’ He was determined to beat this addiction. ‘This is not real, this cannot be real.’ I was in shock. My beautiful boy was gone. And the signs began.”
‘My father secretly recorded videos of me naked. I wanted nothing but my mother’s love and support. ‘Get out of my house,’ she told me.’
“I wouldn’t allow him to have power over me any longer. I stood up and walked out of the house. No one followed, no one cared. I had angels flying over me that night.”
‘My daughter was fed a cashew. She had itchy ears within 5 minutes, but was still playing. It all changed moments later. She started blacking out.’: Mom shares daughter’s severe nut allergies
“It snuck up on us so unexpectedly and quietly. I expected to see choking, gasping, hear wheezing, see her grabbing at her chest and neck area. It was actually very silent.”
‘He introduced me to his parents as ‘the woman he wants to marry.’ Our marriage shocked them. When I held our baby girl in my arms, skin to skin, everything was perfect. Until it wasn’t.’
“He wanted to bid on me but didn’t have enough money at the time. He couldn’t go home with regret. He walked over to me.”
‘I am about to call you.’ My heart pounded. ‘Are you able to take in a newborn baby boy?’ I looked at my husband. ‘I guess we are doing this!’
“Her excitement was oozing out as she exclaimed, ‘The day is finally here!’ Yes, the day we had all been thinking about, fantasizing about, and trying to plan for, was finally here.”
‘There’s good news and there’s bad news,’ my dad told me. ‘They found out what’s wrong with Mom.’: Family comes together to care for mom with dementia
“After 2 years of troubling behavior with my mom, and doctors assuring us there was nothing wrong, we finally had concrete answers. Dad’s voice caught in his throat and tears welled in his eyes. He said the word we most feared.”
‘I woke up in a different country, in a tattoo parlor, after a night of drinking. I have no idea how we were allowed on the plane. All I had was my passport.’
“I had no luggage, and was wearing my clothes from the night before. That night changed everything for me.”
A Letter To The Overlooked Bereaved Dads
“All the nurses direct their attention to mom, but as you stand tall next to the woman you love, inside you are broken. As you hold your significant other’s hand, not one person in the room notices your eyes swell with tears. But I do.”
‘Mrs. Fey, I’m sorry for getting in a fistfight during algebra, then calling you the B-word for breaking it up. And what did you do? You showed up at 7 a.m. to work with me one-on-one.’
“My parents were divorced, my father was addicted to painkillers. He was in jail most of high school. My mother and I weren’t getting along. None of this justifies how I acted, and it wasn’t your problem. You made my difficult life bearable.”
‘She wanted to crash a wedding, toilet paper a house and travel. I remember looking at her sitting there, thinking, ‘She will not be here much longer.’
“I will never forget the day she called me and told me. She was sorry and she didn’t understand why it was happening to her.”
‘My principal emailed me. She added another student to my roster. ‘Come talk to me when you get a chance. I have to tell you her story.’: Teacher remembers every student ‘has a story’ and they just might ‘change you’
“She saw the terror in my eyes. The office lady leaned in to whisper, ‘The guidance counselor will be in shortly.’ He just stood there. Looking up at me with his big, empty, chocolate eyes. In that moment, I could peek into his soul. I knew I was in that classroom, at that moment, for him.”
‘Girl, I bet you’ll get pregnant right after you adopt. Just watch!’ It’s nails on a chalkboard when I hear that.’
“We didn’t adopt in order to become pregnant. I never want my sweet girl to think she was SECOND best. You are the absolute BEST thing that ever happened to me.”
‘My mama’s baby is going to come out of her crotch and it’s going to hurt! Then it’s going to eat milk from her boobies!’ My younger mom-self would have died. But, she’s not WRONG.’
“We were out shopping when an older woman approached me about my 5 kiddos. I’ve never minded the curiosity. After asking all of their ages, I said, ‘And another one on the way!’ Then, one of my 3-year-old twins had some extra information to share.”
‘That night started with a date and a bottle of wine I remember already being open. It had been 11 years. It was time to deal with it.’
“There are only two people who know exactly what I remember. Me, and a compassionate police detective. Late one evening, an email popped up with the name of that person’s ex-wife. The thing was, I became obsessed.”
‘The nurse checked if my skin was salty to confirm her suspicions. She was right. I came out of the hospital and immediately changed my job.’: Woman diagnosed with ‘life-threatening’ Cystic Fibrosis, ‘I couldn’t be more alive’
“I was rushed to the hospital into intensive care. I was not expected to survive, but luck seemed to be on my side. The nurse who was caring for me suspected what it was – her daughter also had it.”
‘I was woken by a call. ‘There is something wrong with Twin B.’ Seeing the name on my caller ID made my heart leap out of my throat. How could this happen to my little, happy fighter?’
“I was trying to wrap my head around it. How does a twin, leave the other twin behind? How do we live on without her? We received another call in the middle of the night. ‘She isn’t moving the right side of her body.’ Nothing was going to stop her.”
‘I blankly looked at the doctor. ‘What does this mean?’ He replied, ‘Hope you don’t go deaf.’ They gave me a discharge note. ‘I could drop dead at any time.’
“Would you ever think a blood clot could save your life? My phone dinged with a new email from the lab, I nervously signed in and opened the attachment. ‘No way!’ I shouted out loud, was I reading this right?”
‘People went out of their way to ignore me, as if being fat was contagious. Others used me as a lesson for their kids. ‘Look! This is what happens when you don’t eat right!’ I couldn’t find happiness, so food was my escape.’
“My weight got to the point where standing was painful. My wife got used to my answer being ‘no’ to everything. The panic set in. Was my weight ruining her life? Was I trapping her? Did she resent me for that? Did she still find me attractive or fun to be around?”
How A Wrong Phone Number Led Me To A Friend I Didn’t Know I Needed
“I had just found out my parents were getting divorced. I struggled with it a lot. Her unexpected, wrong calls helped me so much. When she realized it was my number and not her grandson’s, I wondered if I would ever hear from her again. Well, I finally got to meet her.”
‘Doctors couldn’t figure out why I was so unlucky, they would tell my mom she was worried for nothing, kids my age are always sick. My mom knew something wasn’t right.’
“My mom noticed a hump on one side of my back but didn’t think anything of it. 3 weeks later the hump grew bigger.”
‘My wife sat me down. ‘We are going to adopt.’ l couldn’t bear letting her down. I wanted to yell out, ‘That’s not fair to the child.’ I had my first panic attack.’
“Despite my ‘advanced maternal age,’ everything looked great. We naively thought getting pregnant would be easy for us. I felt stuck in the middle of two worlds.”