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.
‘We’ve recently found ourselves trading boxes of face masks for bottles of Purell. We’re trying our best to plan ahead.’: Mom of micro-premie says ‘think of our family and others like us too’
“We do not take her out of the house. Her life depends on it. We are trying our best to plan ahead, but as stores quickly lose stock and people hoard items to resell at an upcharge, we have begun to scramble. She is immunocompromised.”
‘I was completely caught off guard when the boy next door from my childhood friend-requested me on Facebook. ‘Sometimes a simple hello can open a door. Great smile.’: After divorce and bad luck in love, woman finds her ‘forever’
“Gag me with a spoon, right? I wasn’t sure it was true. I mean, who would leave this fine specimen of the male species? He asked for my number and we agreed to meet for coffee. It was snowing, pretty hard. This guy offered to drive over an hour in it to see me. This was a big. freaking. deal.”
‘Recently, I walked into a room full of young men. I didn’t find any of them attractive. It hit me: I like girls.’: Teen comes out as lesbian to her family, ‘They love me no matter who or what I am’
“I totally cried. As my mom told them, I hid behind my tea mug (it was a pretty big mug) because I didn’t want them to see me crying. I thought I was strong enough to not. Of course, my dad then joined as well and stated, ‘Yeah, I’m straight, I like women.’ We all laughed as he looked at my mom.”
‘I remember calling the police so they wouldn’t blame me for abuse. I knew he was going to harm himself. I could no longer keep him safe.’: Mom of son with aggressive autism says ‘he’s perfect to me’
“I stood behind him, yelling to my husband to watch as I clapped repeatedly behind his head loudly. He didn’t even flinch. I said, ‘He’s deaf, right?’ When he was in elementary school, he was physically abused by a speech pathologist. I reached out to anyone and everyone for help, but I was left empty-handed for a very long time.”
‘I grabbed his phone, punched in the numbers. My heart was pounding out of my chest. We’d just made love, and there she was.’: After affair woman says, ‘We don’t have the perfect marriage, but we do have a renewed one’
“There it was. Or should I say, there she was. Mystery solved. She helped me craft a letter. My husband was having an affair. He felt I had abandoned him when he needed me most. He was an easy mark for any woman. I would pray my husband would have a heart for me. My husband was becoming a new man.”
‘She is 4 years old. 5 weeks and 1 day. And she isn’t toilet trained.’: Mom says her daughter ‘will do it in her own time’
“Today when I was met with a disproving look, one of shock and full of judgement about her not wanting to toilet train. I confidently shook my head and I proudly said, ‘She will do it. In her own time.'”
‘She is always with you.’ There I was, burying my daughter, picking out the perfect casket. ‘No, she’s not f#$King here, is she?’: Mom mourns loss of daughter to flu, ‘In 20 years I will still be thinking about my baby girl’
“When I walked in, she hugged me. I whispered in her ear, ‘Don’t f*@King ask how I’ve been, because I’ve been better. Now can we please do something about my gray hairs.’ The worst is always ‘time will heal.’ You think every day for the rest of my life I won’t think about her and it won’t break my heart all over again?’ It sends me into an internal rage.”
‘I wiped away tears and quit ignoring the calls from CPS. 30 minutes after I told my 1st grade students goodbye, I had a 4-week-old baby placed in my arms.’: Mom says fostering journey is ‘nothing like I imagined’
“I forgot to send my kid to school with shoes….again. I cry the entire way home. I throw myself a pity party on what my life was supposed to look like. But then I get the little boy who has been handed a very hard life. The teen mom who has nowhere to turn, and the drug addicted mother who lives a life of regret. I will get too attached every single time. And that’s definitely a good thing.”
‘Our baby arrived before the ink dried on my high school diploma. I crumbled like a piece of paper with the news. We had so much on the line.’: Teen parents pursue career dreams, travel full-time
“The daydreams of twenty-something freedom felt gone. We were just another measured ‘teen mother’ statistic that pigeonholed our future. I was scared and unsure, but my husband never doubted. We didn’t just decide to rock the boat. We decided to sell the ‘boat’ and trade it for a set of wings, a huge dose of optimism, and faith in the unknown future.”
‘His face lit up. ‘There’s my friend, Max!’ You didn’t hear your son say that. But I did. I looked at my son. He was still crying.’: Mom to special needs son thanks woman in parking lot ‘for answering my prayers’
“As you both passed the side of my car, your son, still trying to catch up with your pace, made contact with mine. My son threw his cup and flung his head back in frustration. He couldn’t tell me what he needed; he is non-verbal. He didn’t know someone had noticed him, someone called him his friend.”