“‘Prepare for the worst. He’s not going to make it to the weekend.’ My mom was right. The next day, her friend walked in on me in the bathroom. I’d been washing my hands for 2 hours straight. They were cracked open, bleeding. ‘Can we talk?’ For the first time in my life, I opened up about my trauma. I spared no detail as I scoured my brain for buried memories. ‘You don’t need to live like this,’ she said. We both burst into tears.”
“The tears were streaming down my face as I faced this man, the love of my life, my soulmate. Our marriage hasn’t been easy. It hasn’t even been hard. It was impossible. I spent years in a haze of prescription drugs, lying, manipulation and selfishness. I broke the law, put my children in danger, stole money from church and our personal account to fund my addiction. He had no choice but to take our 3 children and leave.”
“After a long year of our kids feeling burnt out, bullied, and unsupported at their private school, we made the difficult choice to bring them home. I wish I could say it was an easy transition or that it immediately felt like the right choice. If I’m being honest, it felt like the only choice. They struggled to go to school each day and their passion for learning dwindled. We knew we had to act fast. So, we dove right in, grieving the life we were leaving behind.”
“I had 3 happy, healthy, perfect kids. Until I didn’t. Zach called home from the school nurse with a headache. I followed our standard rule, ‘You aren’t throwing up, you don’t have a fever. Go back to class.’ For 2 days, he told me his eyes and ears felt weird. I told a friend, a nurse, that my son was holding his head funny. Within a minute she said, ‘You need to get him checked.’ I said, ‘Oh ok.’ Then she said, ‘I mean now.’”
“You didn’t get to hold the spotlight for long, did you? You were my only baby for such a short amount of time. You’ll never remember when you had my full attention, or that you didn’t have to fight for space on my lap. You won’t remember sitting around the table with just your father and I for dinner, or how we used to hover over you at the playground. You won’t remember how much we worried. But we will.”
“After I said, ‘right now?’ he gave me the look of nevermind. I saw it. He knew my question meant ‘not right now’ or ‘we’ll see’ or any of the other things I say when I don’t want to do something. ‘You’re always so busy.’ And he was right. Not in the guilt me way, but in the truth way. His words stuck with me so much as I was sitting there, I decided this morning I’d be busy in a different way. My coffee is colder. But my heart is warmer.”
“The rock hit my axle and sent us plummeting into the side of a cliff. With all my might, I tried to lift the heavy van off my son’s tiny body, but he was already gone. People commented how horrible of a mom I was. How I deserved it. I wanted to shake them, tell them how hard I fought to save him. That he held my hand with his little fingers, and told me I was the best mama ever. But no one would have listened anyway.”
“My son was vomiting and having crazy amounts of diarrhea for days. As I was unpacking his daycare bag, he was standing beside me crying. Next thing I know, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he passed out. I now have a 2-year-old with multiple chronic allergies and an 8-week-old heading in the same direction.”
“I saw him in the deep end. I called his name. His arms were moving fast but he didn’t answer me. I saw a look of terror in his eyes. I jumped in, fully clothed. ‘What’s going on?!,’ my husband asked. All I remember saying is, ‘He was drowning.’ When he came out, he kept asking to go home. It sounds crazy, but I felt like he needed to get back in the pool.”
“After the teary goodbyes, we walked inside. Our son tossed his shoes off and threw himself on the floor sobbing. It broke my heart because I knew he is now realizing that ‘See ya in 2 weeks’ is a different kind of goodbye. What broke my heart more was the pain in his daddy’s eyes as he drove off.”
