“I’d never feel those soft baby hairs, the heat of her being alive. I’d never see her smile again. The pain was so severe I thought I’d die.”
‘I awoke to my husband’s screams. ‘Wake up, Kara isn’t breathing!’ In the blink of an eye, she was gone.’: Mom loses daughter to SIDS, starts foundation in her honor
‘Relax, it’s just an empty toilet roll.’ I carry the mental load for this family. I complete the invisible, thankless tasks no one wants to do.’: Stressed mom powerfully urges ‘please think of me’
“For me, it’s not just that one task, it’s one less thing on my list, one less thing on my mind. So, the next time you pull the last piece of paper off the roll, for once, please just think of me.”
‘Are you willing to take in two more boys?’ They were filthy, skeletal. ‘We encourage you to bathe them immediately.’: Mom shares the beauty and heartbreak of foster care
“Along the way, many people have asked, ‘Why keep doing this? It’s painful.’ They need to know they are enough. They need to know they are worthy of safety and love. For every child we have loved and lost, we would do it all over again, in a heartbeat.”
‘Who is that tall man that now towers over her? Where is her little boy? How did it go so fast? She rests her read against his broad shoulder.’: Mom urges ‘remember how it all feels’
“The tiny newborn. The sweet toddler. The adventurous boy. The challenging teenager. The confident man. The doting father. She’s loved them all. And she knows that for as long as she lives, she’ll always remember how this feels.”
‘Be more patient with him when he cries.’: Mom shares trials of co-parenting, ‘Love them enough to let go sometimes’
“I wish she understood, ‘It’s important to watch him sleep, even if it means staying up a few minutes more.’ I wish I hugged her, because the empty space she felt when he was gone would soon be regularly vacant.”
‘My daughter was struggling with surgery when a young Marine reached out. ‘Pip has touched my life.’ He sent a package in the mail.’: Special needs mom thanks stranger for act of kindness
“A young Marine, from way across the seas, stumbled upon us. And he has no idea the magic he’s brought my kids ever since.”
‘We were told, ‘She may not be born breathing.’ Scared was an understatement.’: Mom gives birth to baby with DiGeorge syndrome, ‘She’s our miracle’
“There were so many unknowns. We were asked multiple times if we wanted to terminate. Everything about having our first baby felt not fair. We just wanted normalcy.”
‘I got a BODY PART amputated, and didn’t get a night stay at the hospital.’: Woman diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer living life ‘more intentionally’
“I was 36 years old. My focus became doing things that make me happy. There’s so much beauty around us if we open our eyes to see it.”
‘Seemingly irritated, they claimed my autistic son had ‘the highest needs of anyone in the school.’ The statement rocked me.’: Special needs mom urges ‘your system, not my boy, is failing’
“My beautiful boy is not failing your system by fitting into his own mold. Your system is failing him, and others like him, by drawing a line.”
‘I looked at myself and saw an old, washed-up woman with nothing to offer. I wanted to go to bed and not wake up.’: Woman shares self-discovery journey, ‘Life is a story we get to write’
“I had a divorce battle on my hands and two children to raise. It turned out no one was going to get me out of this mess. It was down to me to sort it out.”