“By the time she was 4, her tomboy phase became something different. I remember getting her ready for school. ‘Mom, I want to dress like a girl today!,’ she said. I went out to the living room and told my husband to ‘not make a big deal about what she was wearing.’ He was her protector.”
“I loved my son, but I would have harmful thoughts. ‘He is so small, what if I just suffocated him?’ I heard stories on the news of women killing their children and I would think, ‘Oh my gosh, is that going to be me?’”
“Little Fitz, oh how I wish we could bring you home. It pains me knowing we won’t be able to see you take your first steps or spit out mushed-up peas. I won’t be able to see a brace-faced boy awkwardly place a corsage on a girl’s wrist before a high school dance, freak out in a parking lot when teaching you to drive, or help you move into your college dorm. I wonder what you would’ve been like, what you would’ve done, and how you’d change the world.”
“Momma didn’t share very many details with me, and I didn’t ask her how she’s survived, or is surviving. But I witnessed it instead. I felt a frog in my throat as I looked at the resemblance of him and his Daddy.”
“The look on my parents’ faces when I asked them what had happened and why I was there, broke my heart. I never thought I’d be one of those anorexics or bulimics who ‘took it too far.’ I started seeing glimpses of what it was like to feel happy without feeling hollow.”
“Every day, I’m reminded that I’ve never felt the love of a mom. I know if I open the door to her, she’ll destroy me and all the progress I’ve made. I’m hurt and sad, but I’m also better off. You do not need to have a toxic person in your life just because you share DNA.”
“Stepping into this with 3 divorces, 4 kids and 1 career in law enforcement between us, we knew the odds of our family surviving were slim.”
“My siblings have brown curly hair, big brown eyes, and cocoa-colored skin. I have blonde hair, light skin, and blue eyes. We could not look more different from one another. But they have been my family since the moment I was born. I don’t know anything different.”
“About 45 minutes into the playlist, a song played. ‘Can I borrow your phone?,’ he asked. I said yes. ‘I miss home. I want to go home,’ he said. I took in a deep breath; the goose bumps came over me and I realized THIS was the feeling.”
“I kept watching. This time, the husband, calm as could be, approached the young boy. ‘May we have our ball back?,’ he asked. I could see the shock on his face. The boy’s mother wasn’t oblivious to what was happening. She SAW it go down.”
