“We wanted to give her one ‘last hurrah’ before the end of her life. A police officer told my father of a place he just HAD to take my mother. ‘People find it only if they’re lost. It will remind her of Ireland.’ I pulled over. There, laid out, was horizon as far as her eyes could see. She was seeing the ocean she had crossed all those years earlier, for the very last time.”
‘At 80 and terminally ill, she was self-conscious of how she looked. ‘They’ll think you’re a rich, eccentric old Hamptons lady,’ I told her. Having aspired to be one, she was happy with that.’
‘Deep down I knew I made the wrong call. His foster trauma was inconvenient, and I pushed it aside for my ease. I completely dismissed him.’
“Once my house had fallen quiet, the interaction at the park came flooding back. Tears filled my eyes as I pictured him under the tree all by himself. I felt mad at myself.”
‘They don’t really feel pain anymore.’ WHAT?! The hardest thing we had to do was say goodnight, and walk out of her room that night.
“We made a decision to keep mom safe. Will they check on her enough? Will she be afraid? We all kissed her goodnight, and headed out the door. None of us looked back. What if we made a mistake? I couldn’t breathe.”
‘The medics arrived, and he couldn’t hide his pain. My husband extended his hand, looked him straight in the eye and quietly said, ‘Thanks for the ride.’: Widow of police officer shares touching thanks to everyday heroes
“It was then that I saw it. My husband was a hero. In that moment I witnessed in his deepest, darkest despair, yet he still did the right thing.”
‘Being a single parent is tough. However, I will say being solo with young kids is a pretty significant opposite-sex attention grabber.’
“Daughter #1 – ‘Are you married?’ Daughter #2 – ‘Don’t ask her! You are supposed to look to see if she has a RING on her hand, right dad?!'”
‘What is going on?’ My husband looked like he’d seen a ghost. The doctor yelled: ‘Get her into the ER, STAT!’: Woman overcomes years of infertility through surrogacy
“’Something wrong with the machine?,’ I asked after 20 minutes of silently looking at the ultrasounds. ‘No dear, I think there is something very wrong with you.’”
How An Ear-Piercing Gone Wrong Allowed Me To Teach My Daughter About Consent
“Our daughter’s been asking to get her ears pierced for months. Once there, she changed her mind. She kept looking at me, apologizing. It didn’t feel right. My dad instinct kicked in.”
Elderly couple holding hands during Hurricane Florence evacuations proves true love withstands all storms
“My tears are flowing.”
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. My body had absorbed one of my twins. My womb was a temporary coffin.’: Mom loses twin son in harrowing pregnancy, says she’ll ‘always have a place for him’ in her heart
“Over the next 4 months, I was scanned every 2 weeks. I had to slowly watch my son break down. First, his little eyes, nose, and beautiful lips became harder to see. Then his tiny fingers and toes started to fuse together. Finally, it got to the point where he lost all of his features. It was torture. I just wanted the day to come so I could get him out and grieve. But I also didn’t want to give birth because I knew once he was out, he was gone forever.”
‘I got a call from a reporter asking about my ‘Autistic kid’ today. Honestly, I made the same word choices before I had her. It used to make me angry.’
“Audrey isn’t an Autistic kid. Audrey HAS Autism. Autism shouldn’t be an adjective. It’s a noun. It’s a medical diagnosis. It is not the defining descriptor of my child.”