“It’s because you teach them they don’t need anything but their imagination to have fun. It’s because every single night you lay with them snuggled up close until they fall asleep, no matter how long it takes. It’s because you loved them right from the start and you’ve never been ashamed to show it.”
“Am I ready for the possibility of my son being swept out of my arms and placed on a ventilator? I was afraid of the arrival of our sweet innocent boy. I broke down on the bathroom floor.”
“I spent an exhausting day trying to be a fun mom, only to be rejected by my 5 year-old who told me he hated me and wanted to live somewhere else. It shouldn’t offend me, because he’s 5, but it did.”
“I immediately started crying. Why would God decide to make my spine curvy and my back ugly and cause me to have to go through this? This could be my last backflip into the pool. This could be my last time flipping around at the trampoline park.”
“Had I changed dry shampoo? I didn’t think so. My face lotion was the same Mary Kay I had been using for months. Why were they suddenly enamored with my smell? Then, it hit me. We’ve never had this much time together before.”
“I am at a loss. I hurt. I’m sick. But I’m not scared. Not for me. Not for my kids. I was born white and don’t have to be.”
“She was told, ‘You should be grateful your son is alive.’ As someone who sits through my own season of suffering, I’ll tell you: most of us know the Good. But it does not negate the suffering. They just co-exist.”
“I was about to turn 25, recently separated. I had only been dating this guy for a month, and had told him I couldn’t get pregnant. Now, here I was, in my aunt’s bathroom, staring at this stick like it had just back-handed my momma. I scheduled my first OB appointment since my regular gynecologist/surgeon is not an OB. ‘I don’t see a baby,’ she said as nonchalantly as humanly possible.”
“The doctor glanced at my son’s chart, looked up at me, and said, ‘I’m going to go get you in to see the best pediatrician we have.’ I remember running into her arms saying, ‘Thank you. Thank you for finding something.’”
“I had a catering appointment one night in the area, so I stopped by to see him. His wife Paria answered the door. ‘Is Uncle Joe here?’ She responded, ‘Well, he is and he isn’t. He might have gone to the store.’ She had packed him into the bedroom because he was drunk, but I didn’t realize that until much later.”
