“I’d never feel those soft baby hairs, the heat of her being alive. I’d never see her smile again. The pain was so severe I thought I’d die.”
‘I awoke to my husband’s screams. ‘Wake up, Kara isn’t breathing!’ In the blink of an eye, she was gone.’: Mom loses daughter to SIDS, starts foundation in her honor
‘Relax, it’s just an empty toilet roll.’ I carry the mental load for this family. I complete the invisible, thankless tasks no one wants to do.’: Stressed mom powerfully urges ‘please think of me’
“For me, it’s not just that one task, it’s one less thing on my list, one less thing on my mind. So, the next time you pull the last piece of paper off the roll, for once, please just think of me.”
‘A crowbar came through the windshield and struck him in the head.’ When he died, a bit of me died too.’: Grieving daughter turns to cooking therapy
“I was hungry to keep his legacy alive, starving for people to recognize my loss. The casseroles stop coming before the grieving has even begun.”
‘I got pregnant on a one-night stand with a guy I barely knew. I had zero respect for my body or myself.’: Woman shares celibacy journey, ‘I’m taking my body back’
“If I wanted to sleep with a man who wasn’t my boyfriend, I did just that. Sex became another drug for me. I drank to oblivion to erase the shame.”
‘Are you willing to take in two more boys?’ They were filthy, skeletal. ‘We encourage you to bathe them immediately.’: Mom shares the beauty and heartbreak of foster care
“Along the way, many people have asked, ‘Why keep doing this? It’s painful.’ They need to know they are enough. They need to know they are worthy of safety and love. For every child we have loved and lost, we would do it all over again, in a heartbeat.”
‘Be more patient with him when he cries.’: Mom shares trials of co-parenting, ‘Love them enough to let go sometimes’
“I wish she understood, ‘It’s important to watch him sleep, even if it means staying up a few minutes more.’ I wish I hugged her, because the empty space she felt when he was gone would soon be regularly vacant.”
‘Every day was a bloodbath. ‘It’s normal for teen girls.’ Little did I know, a storm was brewing on my insides.’: Endometriosis warrior shares 5-year journey to diagnosis
“By the time I was 14, I dreaded my period every month. I couldn’t leave the house in fear I’d leak through my clothes. The pain had me bedridden for days.”
‘We were told, ‘She may not be born breathing.’ Scared was an understatement.’: Mom gives birth to baby with DiGeorge syndrome, ‘She’s our miracle’
“There were so many unknowns. We were asked multiple times if we wanted to terminate. Everything about having our first baby felt not fair. We just wanted normalcy.”
‘I got a BODY PART amputated, and didn’t get a night stay at the hospital.’: Woman diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer living life ‘more intentionally’
“I was 36 years old. My focus became doing things that make me happy. There’s so much beauty around us if we open our eyes to see it.”
‘I looked at myself and saw an old, washed-up woman with nothing to offer. I wanted to go to bed and not wake up.’: Woman shares self-discovery journey, ‘Life is a story we get to write’
“I had a divorce battle on my hands and two children to raise. It turned out no one was going to get me out of this mess. It was down to me to sort it out.”