“I found him talking in the laundry room at our apartment complex with a woman from his job. She was there letting him know she was also pregnant. I felt like vomiting. There I was, a young, scared, single mom homeless and couch surfing, starting her life ‘alone.’ I knew I had to get out.”
“‘Sir, can you take it to a hospital?’ He pulled his truck past me and tipped his hat. ‘Hail nawl, little lady. That thang is all on you.’ Pretty soon I was standing alone, next to my car, with a half-dead thing in a shoe box that was IN MY HANDS. I was hyperventilating. This was not okay.”
“Every single day, she would give me a hug, tell me how special I was, and tell me to have a great day. I thought I was treated special. I was wrong. There were hundreds of comments that told the same story.”
“We cried and prayed. We said yes right away. Then we got a call to see if we wanted to foster-to-adopt a 1-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl.”
“People really love to paint the dream it isn’t. It’s always a simple message that declares lifelong love. Marry the person who will see you fart and pick your nose, who won’t care if you’ve gained 50 pounds.”
“I said, ‘Something is wrong, I just know it.’ Her body would twitch, eyes blinking faster than you could ever imagine. Her lips making a loud smacking noise. It scared me to death. The questions started to flood my mind…how long did we have with her?”
“I haven’t lost a job or called the n-word because of the color of my skin. I haven’t had to work harder and prove myself as a person AND because of the color of my skin. I’ve known what it’s like to lose a job, be broke, and have zero in my bank account. But I still have white privilege.”
“I like pretty pictures too. This feels familiar to me. I know this because I’ve experienced both firsthand. I am not here to cast stones, nor empathize. I just want to talk, mother to mother.”
“‘Guys, guys, guys…GUYS! Just stop for one moment!!!! Please for the love of all that is holyyyy…’ By this point, my Fight and Flight responses are in overdrive. I’m honestly instinctually ready to flee the home or drop kick one of them (neither of which I can rationally do).”
“A woman with 6 children had a strong feeling a child was missing from their family and they were supposed to adopt. A week later, they were told a horrific story of a baby in Vietnam who had survived a bomb blast. It was as if we had both been waiting for each other thousands of miles apart.”
