“‘Do you guys know that Jesus loves you?’ Now normally, the idea of being stuck on a 14+ hour flight with someone who uses that line as an ice breaker would send me reaching for the airsick bag faster than you can say, ‘bad peanuts.’ But on this day, when I’d been praying like a mad woman for some little sliver of comfort – it was exactly what I needed to hear.”
“He kept screaming it. I decided to ignore him and keep running, which seemed to really annoy him. He lashed out. That was my trigger point. The B word. I ripped off my headphones, prepared to stand up for myself when this little boy walking alongside his mother and little sister stepped in.”
“I was struggling in secret, terrified someone would find out. Bit-by-bit, I was disappearing. ‘You don’t need to use your body to show you’re hurting.’ School no longer mattered, and a monster was being born. Everyone walked on eggshells around me. Then all of a sudden, my parents learned what was happening. They were shocked.”
“There it was in my phone bill. The proof that something was wrong. I found text messages to another number all hours of the night. I called to pay my power bill and was asked ‘which address’ I wanted to apply the payment to. Then I knew. He had two places he was living. Two separate lives. ‘Honey, he doesn’t deserve your love.’ I was sure I’d never marry again, until our blind date.”
“I was shocked. My heart was beating out of my chest. I hadn’t seen these faces since I was 16, leaving the hospital.”
“We couldn’t find our son anywhere. We were stunned to hear what happened in the time he’d been ‘missing.’ As he came upon the bridge, he saw an outline of a person perched on the railing with her body leaning over the top, looking down toward the raging river. Eventually, she looked back at him with a terrifying look in her eyes. ‘How can I help?,’ he asked.”
“Three hours later, we became legal guardians for 2 adorable little toddlers. The first month, I felt like a horrible parent. ‘How did we end up here?’ Everything changed when news broke that our 2 littles were going to be placed with another family willing to take in all 3. My heart broke as the reality of foster care hit. I remember looking at Jared and saying, ‘I’m not ready to lose them.’ 0 to 4 kids in a year and a half? Why not??? We needed to take them all!”
“My son woke up Monday morning, came downstairs, and immediately ran over to his father’s office chair. Arms raised in exasperation, he turned toward me and asked, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ We’d just had a wonderful weekend, and I wasn’t ready for it to be over. ‘Daddy’s at work. He has to go to work to make money. He goes to work because he loves us.’”
“She thought we should meet. Would it be awkward? Texting a stranger? I knew what I needed to do first. Look her up on Facebook. I immediately found her page and was instantly intimidated by her photo. Her profile picture was of her on their wedding day. She was beautiful, thin, gorgeous. There were no photos of her daughter’s face. Everything was vague. Did she think she was Blue Ivy? What’s the deal with that? I am a chronic over-sharer. Surely we wouldn’t have anything in common. Oh how wrong I was.”
“To the lady who told the cashier at Aldi I had a fake baby and was trying to smuggle yogurts out of the store: 1) My baby is 100% real. 2) Yogurts are like 25 cents. 3) I’m lactose intolerant and don’t consume dairy. Thank you for the laugh, though. I really needed it because I was up all night tending to my again, 100% real, baby. Parenting is hard enough; the judgement of strangers is not needed.”
