LJ Herman is a former editor at Love What Matters and lives in Colorado. LJ is a concert, ticket and technology enthusiast. He has seen the Dave Mathews Band over one hundred times and counting.
‘I told my husband it made sense to leave my 6-figure job. I’d keep the house spotless. I was going to be a domestic goddess.’: Mom says ‘your kids will think you’re a superhero no matter what’
“Without a full-time job weighing me down, I was going to be the domestic goddess I had always dreamed of becoming. A cookie-baking trophy wife who worked out regularly, kept a beautiful home, and had a fiery libido. His life would get SO MUCH BETTER. Needless to say, I am none of those things.”
‘Snap out of it, Christina! This will end, they will go back to school.’: Special needs mom gives advice for stages of grief, ‘Just make it to acceptance’
“Those first few weeks, I feel like we were all in denial. I know I was. My practical self found its way to bargaining. I’m not going to lie, I did convince my wife to let us get the trampoline. Give yourself a little grace.”
‘My psychiatrist called to ask about Mother’s Day. ‘Can we just skip it this year?’ My mom’s response was an emphatic, ‘No!’: Mom who lost daughter to epilepsy says ‘happy Mother’s Day to all, we’re with you’
“Last year my mother and mother-in-law spent a combined eight weeks living with my family as we prepared for the end of my daughter’s life and grieved her afterward. I’ll survive the day, because it is just that, one day and I’ve survived much worse.”
‘Yesterday, it happened. Complete panic and total rage. And I took it out on my husband, who doesn’t deserve it.’: Woman struggling with anxiety says ‘love suggests you should say you’re sorry anyway’
“After I calmed down, I told him I was sorry. I felt terrible. ‘You don’t have to apologize. But thank you.’ What would make him say that? I thought a lot about it. But I’ll give it to ya straight. I always thought that was a bunch of crap.”
‘You have always been my loudest cheerleader. I never knew…but now, I know. You are not just my mom, you are my truest friend.’: Woman pens touching Mother’s Day tribute, ‘You taught me how to be a mother’
“I was still 15 and so you drove me the 30 minutes there, stayed in the car doing your nursing school homework during the 3-hour rehearsal, and then drove us the 30 minutes home. Every single day.”
‘Didn’t think prom would be breaking it down in the cheese isle of festival foods with my father, but it was a good time.’: Father treats daughter to fun night after missed prom, ‘We can’t make up for their losses, but we can love them through it’
“It should have been her prom. But instead, she is in the car with her father, taking her first trip outside these walls since March. A ride to the store is a treat that brought tears to her eyes tonight.”
‘I compared everyone after him to him. That night I whispered, ‘Still feels the same, doesn’t it?’ He nodded his head up and down.’: Woman says ‘he outweighs it all’
“See, I didn’t meet him. He’s the only one I ever want to go through this life with. We may not have forever, but even if we had just one more moment under that sky, I will have won every gamble I’ve ever made.”
‘I used to tell people I didn’t believe in abortions. ‘It’s a baby! Murder!’ Then my boyfriend died. You don’t know until you know.’: Woman struggling with grief says ‘I was faced with an impossible choice only I could make’
“After Jamie died, I found out we were expecting. We were pregnant. Only the ‘we’ was just me now. No one told me not to do it. No one tried to make me feel bad.”
‘A black and white dog came running toward us. The owner was an older gentleman. He’s always alone—no wedding ring.’: Woman reminds us that during difficult times ‘we all want to know we’re not walking alone’
“He has no one to talk or walk with. ‘Hi!’ my daughter said. Some people find this endearing, others are annoyed. The smile that spread across his face… I’ll carry it with me forever.”
‘My husband was shaken. I reached my breaking point. The dam broke loose.’: Woman struggling with mental health says, ‘one of the most loving things we can do is take charge of our health’
“A lot of it’s a blur, but it scared me. I truly believed I would be okay if I could just stay positive and present. I was wrong, I was so wrong. It scared all of us.”