“We stood in astonishment. Prior to this, he’d only known how to say one word: ‘Dog.’ My wife and I leaned in to tell him we loved him. He looked up again and said, ‘I love you.’ We held his little hand, his little frail body in my arms, and begged him to visit us. I asked him to watch over his siblings. We put him in the black Suburban, and watched them drive away.”
“This is what they will always be to you. But dang it if I don’t want to go back to that time when he looked up at his big sister, and was so proud. This year I’ll send that murderous clown out into the neighborhood hoping he’s polite and that people can see past his horrific costume.”
“‘You can be a Mom. You don’t need a husband.’ I couldn’t ignore how her words resonated with the deepest part of my heart. ‘Can I really do this?’ I asked the nurse, ‘is everything okay?’ She shook her head and said, ‘no.’ I was disoriented. ‘What are you saying?’ This pulled a strength out of me I never knew I had.”
“The last thing I want is a friend crying to me over the phone, holding her newborn, telling me she’s not cut out for this. So, I told her the truth. That most nights I sleep 4 hours. My relationship suffered, my body changed, and I got the baby blues. That I’m still mourning the carefree girl I was before, who loved not knowing what tomorrow would bring. I’m still letting her go.”
“‘Hey Girl, what you up to?’ ‘That’s my cousin, I’ll introduce ya.’ She motioned him over. Jasper winked and walked back to the car. ‘Girl he is waaaay too old for you,’ she cautioned. ‘Age ain’t nothing but a number. I like the way he looks.’ I was smitten.”
“I’m battling Susan at Aldi because she has 4 items less than me and wants to go in front. It’s having eggplants thrown at me fast and hard by an angry check out assistant. If I make it too yellow will my 5-year-old have a hernia because it looks like it’s been touched by a vegetable?”
“I find myself angry. Angry I am here asking a search engine stupid, little questions almost every one else in my life gets to talk to their mom about. I never realized how many things I would still need to ask, until the option wasn’t there anymore. The worst part? Every time, the grief hits me hard all over again.”
“‘There’s been an accident.’ Silence. My doorbell rang. 6 uniformed agents were at my front door. ‘Leave your daughter here, they will watch her, you need to come with me.’ I was hesitant, but sensed the urgency in their voices. No one knows how long he had been laying there. I froze. I kept thinking it was a joke. Scott was a huge prankster. I just kept hoping his eyes would open.”
“As a young girl, there were signs. I literally danced to my own beat, mispronounced words. I spent years humiliated, called to stand up in front of classmates and speak the language I couldn’t hear. On one test in particular, I completely bombed the oral exam, tears streaming down. ‘I thought you didn’t want to be labeled as different,’ my teacher said. That was the final straw.”
“When I was 18, I threw a party at my house. I convinced my parents I was grown enough to stay home alone. Enter the sweaty keg in the living room that left a ring on the floor permanently. And the collection of teddy bears my mom kept in the living room drowned in the pool. It was devastating. That night I drank too much and let people I thought were friends, destroy parts of my childhood.”
