“At 11, they draped a pale, unfamiliar version of my dad in white. ‘Are you alone?’ I watched a flurry of red and blue police lights dance across my ceiling. Alcohol poisoning. He never returned. You knew my past. Yet, you judged me when I turned down your drink. Did you know, I saw my father in my nightmares that night? Did you know, I was smiling, but dying on the inside? My trauma is more important than your right to a fun time.”
“We decided we were done having children, but still had 6 embryos frozen. I created a Facebook profile in hopes of finding a deserving family. I didn’t expect much. Within hours, we had EIGHT families interested. Kate and Seth were put in our path for a reason.”
“‘Sir, you have kidney cancer.’ My husband was 32. It was shocking. Before cancer was our biggest obstacle, infertility was. We chose to freeze his sperm – a decision that would change our lives forever. Two embryos were left over. Our hospital didn’t believe in destroying them, so I had to decide what that meant for me. Before he died, Joel told me, ‘You and I are going to have another baby. It will be a girl, you know what to name her.’”
“When my husband and I were told our child had a lifelong and severe medical condition, things changed. I feel no bitterness, no resentment, no envy for others who don’t have to consider these things. I do, however, feel sadness.”
“You’re probably thinking I went crazy in the daycare office, demanding to know who was biting my daughter. That I threatened to remove her from their care. I did none of those things. ‘How would you feel if your kid was the biter?’ my mom asked. The answer is: terrible. I’m sure the mother of this child thinks I hate her. I absolutely do not. But please try. The school cannot ‘fix’ your child.”
“Jason has always been the most attentive father. He’s never missed any of their events. We have raised two daddy’s girls and I was about to break their hearts. Their future suddenly looked very different. The dreams they had of their daddy walking them down the aisle had come to a screeching halt.”
“If I were to die today, my son would have a collection of photos of me with Instagram filters. Get in front of the camera. Even if you’re on day 3 of dry shampoo and you don’t love the way your body looks. If you were to die today, your child wouldn’t care about any of that. They just want to see YOU, not the overly-filtered woman you post on social media. They want to see you the way they knew you.”
“You’ve become gifted in the art of rolling your eyes when you disagree. I’m not always good at listening; I know that. But no matter what, you’re still my little boy. Even though your hands are bigger than mine, you’re still my little boy. I had no idea the incredible young man you’d become.”
“Kyle Aaron Huff was at the rave. This was the same after party that Luke and I would have been at. All I wanted was to stay with Luke, but I knew I needed my mom more. He took me to the airport, we said our goodbyes, and I left. I looked back and saw him looking back at me, and I almost stopped. But I knew I had to keep going. In a span of 2 years, I lost the man I thought I’d marry, and the man who was perfect for me.”
“‘He will not change, at least not right now,’ my friend told me. As I wrote a breakup message, my heart dropped, scared of his reaction. He was absolutely livid. When he was finally fed up with me not answering his calls, he messaged me. ‘We had sex.’ I thought he was joking. I handed the phone to my best friend whom he was referring to. She smirked and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Yeah I did it, I messed up.’”
