“The look in your eyes said you were already gone. Your family wept, told us to keep trying. They didn’t want to let you leave. So, we continued on. Medications. Shocks. Pumps. Sweat poured down my face. I tried to hide my tears by staring at my shoelaces. We watched the life leave your body and go to a place none of us know or understand. We tried so hard to save you. We just couldn’t do it that day.”
“We cried, touching him gently. The room was filled with silence. ‘What color would you like Noah’s casket?’ ‘What outfit will he be buried in?’ I struggled to answer. I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘I’m not supposed to be making these decisions. Parents aren’t supposed to bury their children.’ We celebrate his twin brother Liam as we grieve Noah. But death is not the end. We will see Noah in heaven some day.”
“When I asked IF the length of my daughter’s skirt affected her education and ability to learn, I was told, ‘Yes.’ When I asked HOW, I was told, ‘School policy.’ I pointed to 3 staff members wearing shorter skirts than my daughter. She looked at me dumbfounded and didn’t answer. This isn’t about my daughter or her school. This isn’t a child issue, or even a parents issue. This is SO MUCH more than being about ‘just a skirt.'”
“I remember hearing someone scream ‘say something, say something!’ and all I could say was ‘help.’ I remember him running over to me and saying ‘I have help on the way, it’s going to be okay.’ I don’t remember anything after that.”
“When I was younger, I wanted to be everything. Smartest, prettiest, funniest…I desired to be the total package. I yearned to be the best possible version of myself. Quite frankly, it was exhausting.”
“My heart was pounding as I stood in the middle of the airport. My two boys aged 3 and 4, gazed up at me with sleepy eyes. It was 6:00 a.m. We were flying home to the USA. I was trying to act calm. The woman at check-in gave me a bewildered look when I told her we had no luggage to check. I was terrified I was going to be asked if I had their father’s permission to take them out the country. I didn’t.”
“I planned our wedding in less than 2 months. I was pregnant, so I didn’t care what my hair looked like on our special day as long as it was out of my face so I could quickly vomit. We were married on a Sunday and went back to work on Monday. I wasn’t wearing my dream dress. But my loved ones surrounded me, and when I said ‘I do,’ I believed in the person I was choosing to lead me into our new life.”
“As I was driving home from the ER this week for the 50th time (I’m a boy mom – don’t judge) looking at my youngest in the back seat, my mind was racing. Here’s another broken bone, that means another doctor visit, another possible surgery, another doctor bill. My mind was going everywhere. I only need to take 4 hours off work. If they do surgery, I’ll need the full day off. I’m an awful mom. And then it hit me. Get your big girl panties on. It’s nothing terminal. I silently cried the whole way home.”
“When they pick my performance to pieces and criticize my every move, I then have to deal with being humiliated and adding another layer of my ‘not being good enough’ complex to the myriad of problems I already have to face on a daily basis.”
“I was 18 when I married my high school sweetheart. I hesitantly resigned myself to becoming a youth pastor’s wife, and told myself I’d learn to bake casseroles and become the epitome of domesticity. I told myself this was who I was. I never anticipated the crash.”
