“I remember my mom on the phone telling me to ‘Get out, get out. Close your eyes, don’t look’. You knew I was coming home first that day. You knew.”
‘Keeley?,’ you whispered. I peeked back in. You were grinning that huge grin. ‘I love you, Keebee.’ I’m not happy to admit I got annoyed. Now, I think you were just preparing me.’
‘I was ‘late,’ but strange things happened. I told Danny I was going to take a pregnancy test. ‘That CANNOT be 2 lines. What is going on?!’ Neither of us could believe our eyes.’
“It’s 3 a.m. and I am yelling from the bathroom: ‘Danny! Wake up! I just listened to a message and she’s in labor! We missed ALL of the calls!’ We were panicked and had a 3 hour drive ahead. ‘How close are you? I don’t know if she can wait much longer!'”
‘I met him on a dating site. I had a lot of creeps asking me inappropriate questions. Jimmy was the ONLY one who didn’t. He changed my life completely.’: Woman says despite her disability, ‘I am living my life to the fullest’
“28 years ago I was born with a spinal cord injury due to my doctor using forceps, and came out basically dead. Doctors told my parents I would be like a vegetable. But they were wrong. Then, I met Jimmy.”
‘We went out to eat. There was a family sitting beside us, obviously disgusted. That hurt. My ‘life choices’ interfere with their views.’: Gay dad of 3 adopted kids says ‘we ARE the new normal’
“I still remember what the room smelled like, I even remember what we were wearing. I couldn’t look away as if I was frozen. I knew instantly, this was the very moment I had prayed for.”
‘Your sister’s been in an accident.’ He broke the news. ‘Where are the kids?!’: Woman adopts long-lost nieces and nephews, ‘Our hearts are so full’
“I called my husband, worried what he’d say. I wanted my nieces and nephews. He responded, ‘Let’s go get our kids.’ We had no idea what we were getting into. We’d never even met them. One by one, they entered the room. I sat there quietly, but inside I was screaming, ‘I am your aunt!’”
‘Only a motherless daughter knows the deafening silence in a delivery room when her mother isn’t there for her grandchild’s first breath.’
“Only a motherless daughter knows the power behind that last ‘I love you.’ Only a motherless daughter knows the difference between ‘I miss my Mom’ because she doesn’t live here, and ‘I miss my Mom’ because she lives in Heaven.”
‘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.’
“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 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.”