“My mother had been rejecting me from conception. She had tried to miscarry me her whole pregnancy. She hated me so much that when I was born, she struggled to even touch me or hold me. I realized I would never win, I would never have ‘That Mom,’ and I would never have the relationship with her I’d wanted all of these years.”
“I started wearing sunglasses indoors. My hair was falling out in chunks, my gums bleeding. Sounds hurt. The very smell of air made me sick. I was a shell of myself, withering away, barely hanging on. But then I thought of my little girl. She was so small, not even talking yet. How would she remember me? Who would teach her to do her hair? I had to stop planning my goodbyes, and start fighting.”
“He wasn’t supposed to die. He was so young. Smart. Full of life. He couldn’t leave us. I waited for his bike to come home, to hear its noise ringing in the street. But our home was silent. And inside me, it wasn’t.”
“I did everything I could to prepare, but it just wasn’t enough.”
“We stood in a circle, praying for more time. ‘This is just a practice run for the real wedding,’ I said, but we both knew it wasn’t true. As we danced, I thanked God for the gray-headed, goofy, kindhearted father I got to love for 23 years. I wanted to stay in that moment forever. No sadness or fear in the way of how much we loved each other.”
“They now have nine kids under the age of 8!”
“But not as you knew them. Not as you remember the 5-year-old smiling at you or the 10-year-old on a skateboard trying to learn to balance, or the 16-year-old ignoring you.”
“When you’re planning to get married, they tell you it’s gonna be hard. But there’s one thing no one tells you before you say your vows: expect to fall out of love.”
“The first thing I asked was his life expectancy. ‘5-10 years.’ The tears did not stop pouring. How could it be true? Why should his life be cut short? Once we got out of the initial haze of disbelief, we immediately knew we had to take action.”
“’I need to tell you something.’ I had an 8-week-old and a 2-year-old. Why was all of this happening to me at once? I was signing my divorce papers in the ICU waiting room, while my dad was in the next room fighting for his life.”
