“Scott just started a new job. We bought a house and were moving. He started not feeling well, but we attributed it to the stress of everything changing in our life. He went to work after getting me settled in the hospital. When he came back, he looked pale. I told him to get some rest, I would be just fine.”
“Do you ever sit down at the end of the night, after wiping down another counter, and think, where have I gone? When the only time you have to yourself is the 5 minutes you lay in bed utterly exhausted and fight to stay awake to just have one minute, one second, to be yourself again. Do you ever miss the old you? Me too.”
“We waited in the parking lot, for hours. She ended up getting sick. It was a very contagious infection that ended up spreading to the baby. My husband cried. He couldn’t believe people were so kind.”
“Candice started smacking my face and yelling my name to get me to respond.”
“When you’ve been told you’re ‘worthless’ enough times, you’ll believe it. I had no home and often slept outdoors. The isolation and bullying became unbearable. I wanted to feel an emotion other than pain. I wanted to feel, for once, like I was in control. If I’d possessed a rifle, I would have been a killer. If I’d known love, I would have never wanted a rifle.”
“I wanted to save my son’s smile and innocence, since I couldn’t save him. When the end happens, I will have these memories to remind me of the wonderful times we had fighting a horrid disease. I will have those beautiful blue eyes I saw for the first time when he came into this world.”
“I have no idea how we ended up married. Being friends for years first, I knew about his cancer diagnosis, and the treatment that left him infertile. She called us. I was so nervous. But when I heard her voice, I just knew.”
“I was afraid to leave my house without my husband. ‘I know this is hard for you,’ he would say. ‘Can you tell yourself that you’re safe?’ ‘No,’ I would respond. I reached out as a bit of a last-ditch effort, right there in the grocery store, tears running down my face. The response was incredible. Those women saved me.”
“This is what it REALLY means to be a man. It’s kissing my wife’s stomach and telling her she’s beautiful, even with her c-section scar and stretch marks. It’s telling my daughter ‘Honey, OWN that Jersey’ when she comes home from school crying after a boy told her to take it off because girls ‘don’t play’ sports.”
“Mom kept saying to me, ‘You’re in labor.’ I kept replying, ‘No I’m not.’ Ethan and I just kept repeating, ‘IMAGINE, imagine if this is it!’ We were so excited, and so naive of what was to come. I put my chin to my chest and pushed as hard as my body could handle.”
