“We always want to know where the nearest exit is. Our minds are forever thinking of an escape plan. The triggers can hit when we least expect it. But I won’t let HIM win. It took us a while before we picked ourselves up and got back to doing what we love to do: go to concerts. WE win. Love wins. Kindeness wins.”
“I walked to the parking lot, then to my car. As soon as the door closed, and no one was watching, the tears started to flow. How could there be anything wrong with my baby?! I couldn’t even picture it. It didn’t make sense. I felt like I let everyone down.”
“It took me all day to think up a response.”
“I couldn’t even fathom what he was saying to me. I was 26 years old, and just gave birth to my daughter 3 weeks before. ‘I can’t stay in the hospital. I need to go home and take care of my newborn.’ ‘Call your family. Tell them they need to come here, right now,’ the doctor told me.”
“Every time a breeze blew by, I could see strands of hair falling to the ground. All I could do was sleep. Every time my brother tried to carry me, I would scream in pain. He rushed me to the nearest hospital, and I begged them to operate on me. The tumor burst inside of me and spread cancer cells all over.”
“When I woke up, I was in a big open room full of other patients recovering. I had multiple nurses around me. One said, ‘Your son is in the NICU.’ My son?! I have a SON? This definitely wasn’t how I expected to find out!”
“‘We have a sibling set of three children.’ I interrupted, ‘THREE??’ It was then that we knew. I felt the dream of a newborn baby slipping away as we agreed to ‘a short while’ while they looked for a prepared family.”
“My little sister and I were talking about our pasts. Of course, Chris came up. I made the comment that I needed to call him and see how he’s doing. A few hours later, the phone rang. I recognized the name on Caller ID right away. It was Chris! I was so excited that I jumped. However, it wasn’t Chris on the other end. It was his stepdad.”
“My first reaction was to gag. But, it kept popping up on the screen. Every time the numbers Dude scrolled to the home page. HOMEMAKER. My blood boiled. ‘WHO the heck was this person to slap that label on me?’”
“At 5:37 p.m., my daughter, who was always so full of life, was declared dead due to cardiac arrest. The nurses moved her over so I could sit next to her in bed. I laid there, talking to her all night, without a wink of sleep. I told her how proud I was of her and how much happiness came from being her mom. I didn’t know how I could ever live again.”
