“Eleven days later, I got a message from Todd. I had never met him in person. We began very innocent conversation about being ‘only parents’ to our children. We sat in that booth for 3 hours…. talking, laughing, crying. After we finally left, I sent a text. ‘I know I should be playing it cool, but I had a really great time. I’d like to do it again soon.’”
“When my husband and I sat down with our pastor for our first session of pre-marital counseling, my mind was a flurry of white noise, punctuated by red-hot panic. The one thing I do remember our pastor saying was, ‘The best marriages happen when both people think they married up.’ Damn, was he right.”
“My little boy was knocked off his feet by a bigger kid during a soccer game. My hands were clinched on the sidelines as I watched him limp toward the goal. I watched and I watched, and I waited. And he never even looked for me. He fell hard. And he didn’t even look for me.”
“‘I don’t love you. I never did. These past 7 years I’ve just been playing house with you and the kids.’ My husband scoffed these words to me after I found a video email from his married girlfriend confirming my worst nightmare. I was trembling uncontrollably. Later I sat on an old road listening to the helicopter above us trying to locate John while we passed my cell phone back and forth begging him to put down the gun. Just before 9 p.m., John asked for the phone to be handed back to me.”
“When I get frustrated with my husband, I want to be left alone, but he wanted to talk. Talk?! Are you kidding me? Ryan expressed his frustration with me as we sat in the hot tub. I wasn’t caught off guard, I knew it was coming.”
‘Mom, what’s wrong with my uncle?’ He moved on to trying new, stronger drugs. My twin brother died that day.”
“It was 4:55 pm. ‘I’m going upstairs to wait for her call,’ I told my family. I walked into my bedroom and flopped on my bed. My fears got the best of me. I couldn’t handle another heartbreak. There is no way we’d be chosen. How could we? We are older, we have 3 children. They wanted to help a childless couple. I laid in the fetal position in my bed, rocking back and forth, feeling nauseous. The phone rang. Was I hearing this correctly?”
“He went on to explain he can’t help but ‘notice’ breastfeeding, and since he’s a guy, he can’t help looking at breasts when they’re ‘just out there.’ Yes, I educated him.”
“At the end of our meal, our server brought us a to-go box and said 5 words with a smile that hit me hard: ‘Your meal’s already been covered.’ Here’s what no one could have possibly seen: Today, 4 years ago, my little brother lived his last day in this world. Today was a ‘Just make it through’ kind of day. Until this moment.”
“They wheeled me back. With a smile on a face I yelled, ‘See you soon!’ The next thing I remember, I opened my eyes and was completely alone in a very dark room. With tears in his eyes he told me, ‘We found a large tumor.’ I was in a nightmare. Oh, no. It can’t be. Brave face Amanda, brave face. I had TWO types of cancer. Absolutely no way. ‘There is some bad news, however.’ There was more bad news? It was too much.”
