“You do it for the people who don’t even live here. You do it to impress your visitors. You do it so no one will see your mess.”
‘She ‘knew I wouldn’t understand.’ Immediately I corrected her. I’m no stranger to pain. My husband struggled to pull the utensils out of their ‘hiding place.’ Then, I heard him say it.’
‘Mom, that boy said Judah looked weird.’ I knew. I saw. I could feel the little boy boring holes into my 4-year-old, who has Down syndrome.’
“I watched him turn away and mention my son to his dad. That’s the first mistake we both made. We both chose to turn away.”
‘Each morning I wake up with the same thought. ‘Do I want to eat today, or do I want to feel skinny?’ I refuse my family’s offerings as they cook their eggs and pour their cereal.’
“I quietly sip my coffee and think to myself, ‘If I eat, I’m instantly going to feel fat.’ It’s a 2-hour struggle with fear and lies about my body before I realize I’m actually starving.”
‘I received the stares, the looks and many of the glares. I knew what those looks were really saying. I understood my life was no longer my own.’
“Memories flood my head so fast they start to overflow as tears run down my face.”
‘You both seemed fine.’ I said. ‘Were you two fighting behind closed doors or something?’ I was on the phone with a divorced friend. I didn’t know what to say. She’d been married 13 years.’
“Then I thought about the night my father left. He came home and told my mother he’d been having an affair, and that he was leaving. I remember it being church quiet. It was an eerie, weighty silence I didn’t understand then.”
‘It’s not my job to make you happy. Sorry, buckaroo. You’re going to have to figure that one out on your own. I’ll make sure I am happy.’
“’You’ve screwed up again.’ You’ll be out of this house. And when that happens, there won’t be much we can do to make you happy anymore.”
‘My phone rang. It was my husband’s uncle. My heart started pounding. ‘You were meant to be this baby’s mom.’ I remember thinking to myself, ‘Is this really happening?’
“I was warned it still wasn’t a sure go, but the odds were in my favor. As we closed the phone call, I smiled in disbelief. She was due in five weeks. FIVE WEEKS!”
‘Divorce. Maybe it’s time. I just don’t think I can make you happy anymore.’: Widow recounts time marriage almost ended in divorce
“There were a lot of conversations where I would literally tell him, ‘You don’t love me.’ On this rainy April day, I had finally worn him down. ‘No,’ I thought.”
‘Mom received a phone call, we must come to the hospital quickly. We were meant to be picking out baby clothes! Our world came crashing down. Life would never be the same again.’
“My Auntie came out of the ward, face pale and sick. I started saying ‘no no no no’. She told me I needed to sit down, and I collapsed to the floor. We were ushered into a small, hot side room.”
‘There was a young family at the airport. Only one set of luggage though. He was freshly shaven, 3 large bags. They called for boarding, he picked his daughter up and kissed her goodbye. She didn’t want to let him go.’
“We got to our seats on the flight and he pulled out his phone. He was doing what we all do. He wanted to take photos for his wife and his daughter to keep them, but he was too embarrassed because of all the fancy businessmen who might see it and judge him.”