“Alone with him, I whispered that he had done such a good job fighting. I reassured him that we’d be alright even though we didn’t believe it at the time. I didn’t want to leave the room. I am honored I got to see my dad out. That was his gift to me.”
“I was told, ‘No one would come looking for you for 2 weeks if something were to happen to you.’ I’d find out about him having affairs. Reporting an abuser isn’t gossip, it’s integrity.”
“I opened my eyes.‘Monday and raining,’ I thought, as I slid my hand across the bed to find an empty pillow. Michael had slept downstairs… again. Our strong foundation began to crumble. I had no idea if our marriage could be saved. ‘I just left the Doctor’s office.’ This was the third doctor he’d seen about the lump above his eye. ‘He said it could be cancer.'”
“I’m part of the moms on antidepressants club. Each morning, we take a little pill to lessen the bad feelings. People who don’t understand say, ‘But there’s nothing to be sad about.’ We aren’t ‘crazy.’ We just want to be better versions of ourselves for our kids. Antidepressants make us better moms.”
“There are a million reasons moms aren’t sleeping. Those reasons will change, but they don’t go away just because our kids are getting older. Tired is how you feel when you’re giving all you can.”
“We celebrated birthdays for two of my sons. Wanting my mom here to celebrate and spoil her grandsons was overwhelming. I even made a last minute run to the grocery store, just to let the tears pour. Then I realized she was there at the party for her grandsons.”
“We get told our family is a sin and our kids are having medical problems because we shouldn’t be together, and we should each be with a man.”
“Hattie had been born with a significant deletion of her first chromosome. We had no idea what this all meant. Hattie was one in a billion. We received a plethora of mail. ‘Dear parent or guardian of a child with special needs.’ Special needs? Hattie doesn’t have special needs, does she? As far as we knew, Hattie seemed completely normal to us! We have learned to avoid the CAN’Ts and focus on all the CANs.”
“’Maybe if I drank bleach,’ I think. I feel so dirty, tired and stiff. ‘Maybe if I turned inside-out and scrubbed my veins out with soap.’ Surely the disease would be eradicated. I’m supposed to find out today. I tap my foot. ‘Remember to breathe, you have to breathe, just breathe.’ Dr. Box settles into his rolling chair. ‘So she’ll always be sick?’ ‘Yes, but we caught it early.’ Yesterday, I dropped my hairbrush. I couldn’t finish. My hair is still knotted in the back. Last week, I passed out briefly, stepping out of the shower. And this was an improvement.”
“Emily was only 2 pounds. She was so small my husband’s wedding band fit around her tiny wrist. She was crying, but I could not hear her. It didn’t seem real. Quickly, I was told by nurses, ‘You cannot touch her.’ I felt helpless. With each day, it became more and more evident my marriage was not going to survive this horrific ordeal.”
