“‘Hello?’ My son was crying, HARD. I could hear a LOT of noise in the background… he definitely was NOT where I left him. It sounded like wind, or traffic??? ‘Where are you? What’s wrong?’ ‘Mom, I need you to promise me I can come home.’ Even in the pain I could hear my son in, I couldn’t promise him this… I couldn’t LIE to my son. He hung up. He wouldn’t answer his phone.”
“There was signs everywhere stating, ‘Nut-Free facility.’ It was truly dreamy, until I watched a little girl approach us while eating a JIF peanut butter bar. I could have died right then. I notified the employee. He told the little girl’s mom, ‘This is a nut free facility.’ The mom did not care. Brynlee began breaking out in hives. Then she started vomiting. ‘If you waited any longer, she wouldn’t have survived.'”
“This is my first-born child. These pictures were taken 7 months apart. That is how fast someone is affected. The face of heroin and meth. Cody, if you see this, please call us… we love you!”
“I remember lying in bed at night as a little boy, begging God to not let me be gay. Every single night I’d end my prayers with, ‘God, please don’t let me have nightmares, and please don’t let me be gay.’ My dad would call me a sissy and say, ‘Don’t act like a queer.’ When I finally came out, I was so scared. Her reaction was so matter-of-fact. ‘It’s no big deal!'”
“‘There is nothing more we can do.’ We counted her tiny fingers, toes. She had my nose, and the most stunning blue-green eyes. We held her hand, stroked her hair. It was the first and last time my husband got to hold his daughter. The little girl whose name he chose. The nurse wrapped her in a white blanket and handed her to me. I took in every detail of her beautiful face, holding her tiny hand until all warmth was gone.”
“I am writing this to you from the table of our tiny little space. In the room behind me our three beautiful little homeschooled boys are sleeping in bunks and my husband is telling me it’s getting late from our room on the other side of the living/kitchen/dining area. We could go out tomorrow and be approved for monstrous debt, we just don’t want it.”
“After my first round of chemo, my husband left me. His family told me he ‘couldn’t stand by and watch the girl he loves, die.’ I filed for a divorce. After 2 more rounds of chemo with my daughter, she was born 6 weeks early. ‘I am leaving this hospital with or without your permission so I can spend Christmas at home with my two daughters.’”
“There are no tryouts. Everyone is accepted. I’ve never been more disgusted by a group of parents in my entire life, the way I was last weekend at my daughter’s soccer game. They made fun of our girls from the get-go. 6-year-old’s. First graders! They don’t keep score! But these parents – they were relentless. Within 2 minutes of this game, I knew this would be a whole different experience.”
“My first glimpse of him was from a picture my husband had taken. His hands were at his chest, his legs were curled up tightly in a little yoga pose. He had 10 sweet fingers and toes, and I was in love. We were both in shock, the panic over doing what was best for him was all I could think about. The nurse put him on my chest. He was so tiny, and beautiful, despite looking ‘different.'”
“My husband knew that while I dried my hair or slathered on moisturizer, I was perfectly comfortable with him coming into the bathroom to continue a conversation or tell me what I’d missed in the show he was watching. I never had an issue with him seeing my body, as I did unsexy things like brush my teeth. Until now.”
