“I was 12 when my mom died. My youngest sibling was a baby, just learning how to walk. It was Easter and she was taken by a brain aneurysm. Gone. At 35. No explanation. I successfully blocked it out of my mind for 20+ years. Attempting to protect my heart. It worked…until it didn’t.”
“I was completely shattered. I’d known him 14 years, been together 13 years. We had a beautiful family home, a crazy dog who we rescued, and to complete our little family, our newborn daughter.”
“In the many years before my daughter, I came to my beach for answers.”
“‘You’re spoiling your kid.’ If it gets me through one more grocery trip so I can get enough coffee to survive another week, then throw that lightsaber in the buggy, kiddo.”
“Tonight, you asked to lay on top of my stomach like when you were a baby. I of course said yes. But we fumbled around for too long, both trying to get comfortable, until we realized it just wasn’t going to happen. One day I held you, and it seemed there was no end in sight for this pure bliss. Then, one day, it was the last time.”
“Next thing I know I’m looking at myself from the ceiling. I’m lying on an operation table. There’s 8 of me. The room keeps spinning. There’s a team working on each copy of me. They’re trying to put me to sleep. They keep telling me to relax. And I’m screaming.”
“Yes, I brought a beautiful new baby into the world and I love him beyond measure. But I also brought a new woman into the world, and I am so proud of her.”
“My wife is 15 years older than I am, and I’m 15 years older than her youngest son, so the age gap was a bit of an issue. Later, our oldest opened up to us about being transgender.”
“‘She has 1 hand and a nub, sometimes wears a robot hand and is a superhero!’”
“It would be days before he connected with Finley. I, on the other hand, held her in my arms and felt alive once more. Her eyes, just like her brothers, looked up at me.”
