“I realized my issues were bigger than I could handle alone. I reached out for help. I found the therapist to be unprofessional and insensitive. I left the session crying and not wanting to go through that again. It’s extremely difficult opening up to a stranger and telling them the most vulnerable experiences you’ve had in your life. I felt defeated and overwhelmed.”
“My son was attacked. In a violent, malicious manner. As one student repeatedly hit him over and over again, others not only held my son down so the student could hit him, but encouraged the attack. Not one school administrator contacted me on the way to the school.”
“My phone was in his hand. I was half asleep. He’d found a thread of messages to a friend of mine. I’d been telling her I felt like the other guy was the one for me. Not my husband. As you can imagine, he was blindsided. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he kept repeating. Tears streamed down my face. If I said it, then that made it more real.”
“The evening before was normal. He was healthy and engaged. We had kids over for dinner. We all jumped on the giant trampoline. He got bossy with the other kids and started telling everyone they were playing the game wrong. I pulled him aside. I was stern with him. Too stern in hindsight. And I made him cry. It’s one of the last interactions we had, and I’ve beaten myself up for it. I can still see the tears rolling down his face. ‘But you’re not listening to me. No one listens to me.’”
“I remember walking in the house at 4:15 a.m. with the most empty feeling I had ever felt. I knew our son would be waking in a few short hours and I wasn’t ready to face reality so soon. I went to our bathroom, filled up the tub, and sat in a hot bath as I cried the little tears I had left. Then I went to Chase’s closet, pulled out his favorite sweats and a big oversized sweater and crawled into bed with his pillow. The sheets and everything smelled like him, and right then and there, I didn’t want to wake up.”
“I raced to my mom’s house. They’d just gotten back from the cruise so I could finally share the good news. ‘YOU’RE GOING TO BE A GRANDMA! My husband and I went to the hospital to meet our son for the very first time. We were greeted by security. ‘I need your ID’s. Where are you folks headed?,’ he asked. ‘We’re going to the NICU to see our son!,’ Jarvis said proudly. We literally became parents overnight. Families DON’T have to match! They are built on LOVE!”
“He spoke with a friend about how sad he was, how he felt like a loser, and how badly he wanted to stop using. He just needed LOVE.”
“I’ll never forget the way my heart dropped when someone said, ‘I’m not pro-termination. But in complex situations like these, sometimes it is appropriate.’ With heartbreaking honesty that rips my insides apart now, I’ll tell you – I went home and googled abortion procedures. A Christian woman who loves Him with all of her heart — I googled it.”
“Having many kids makes parenting into a super long marathon. And that is no joke when you may no longer be in your 30’s. But the blessings? They are no joke either.”
“One night after I got home from the gym, I felt a tiny lump the size of a dime on my right nipple. Like most men, I assumed it was a cyst or ingrown hair. My wife pushed to get it checked out. Lo and behold, I was drinking my morning cup of coffee, still in my PJs and trying to wake up, when I got a call. ‘Michael, our biopsy results came back and you have cancer.’ I went to work that day looking like someone walked over my grave.”
