“I looked at the nurse with tears in my eyes. ‘That little boy is the only one I have.’ His eyes rolled back. The physician started sobbing. I held up my hand to push her away. ‘I need you to come in here. I need you to talk to your son.’ I took Joseph’s hand, looked into his beautiful face, and begged him to stay. ‘He’s going to just wake up. He’s going to wake up, and we’ll go home.'”
“These little traumas are hard to communicate. They remain mostly unseen. But they don’t leave us. We wouldn’t change our kids for anything. We wouldn’t change how they have changed us. But, damn, sometimes we wish we could lighten their loads.”
“At night, the hospital halls became so quiet. We made beds out of chairs, cots, and window ledges. Hospital living and doctor offices became our new normal. But every moment was filled with love.”
“Some of us have already decided. For some, it was decided for us, and some, like me, are sitting right smack dab in the middle of indecision. We’re offered strong opinions from others not even in our position. And if we’re honest, we’re over it.”
“I’m tired of worrying. I’m tired of hearing about politics. I’m tired of trying to learn about coronavirus. I’m tired of the overwhelming amount of learning I need to do, almost daily, in order to keep up with what all is going on in the world right now. Y’all. I am tired. My tired is tired.”
“What do you do when you have a child who explores the world around him by touching and feeling everything he sees? Last night, I broke down. All the thoughts and emotions came pouring out of me on my bedroom floor. As a parent of a child with a disability, NOTHING can prepare us to make the type of decisions we are all abruptly facing.”
“You get the invite, you roll your eyes, and you instantly scoff at the pomp and circumstance of it all, thinking, ‘They won’t even remember this or know what’s going on!'”
“She wasn’t feeling well all day. When she heard them coming down the road, she asked, ‘It’s the garbage men!!! Can I go outside?’ Since that day, her love of trucks has become more about who is driving them than the truck itself. This has gone beyond anything we ever expected.”
“I had a hard time making friends. There were times I wished I had a ‘normal’ sibling who could talk, who I could share my secrets with. My mom showed me how much of a blessing it is to have Michael.”
“She said, ‘It’s an emergency. It’s Knox.’ Looking to the back where he was, all I could see were those bare legs. I had no idea how much this decision would replay over in my head and haunt me.”
