“Then I thought about the night my father left. He came home and told my mother he’d been having an affair, and that he was leaving. I remember it being church quiet. It was an eerie, weighty silence I didn’t understand then.”
‘You both seemed fine.’ I said. ‘Were you two fighting behind closed doors or something?’ I was on the phone with a divorced friend. I didn’t know what to say. She’d been married 13 years.’
‘It’s not my job to make you happy. Sorry, buckaroo. You’re going to have to figure that one out on your own. I’ll make sure I am happy.’
“’You’ve screwed up again.’ You’ll be out of this house. And when that happens, there won’t be much we can do to make you happy anymore.”
‘My phone rang. It was my husband’s uncle. My heart started pounding. ‘You were meant to be this baby’s mom.’ I remember thinking to myself, ‘Is this really happening?’
“I was warned it still wasn’t a sure go, but the odds were in my favor. As we closed the phone call, I smiled in disbelief. She was due in five weeks. FIVE WEEKS!”
‘Mom received a phone call, we must come to the hospital quickly. We were meant to be picking out baby clothes! Our world came crashing down. Life would never be the same again.’
“My Auntie came out of the ward, face pale and sick. I started saying ‘no no no no’. She told me I needed to sit down, and I collapsed to the floor. We were ushered into a small, hot side room.”
‘That word changed my entire life. ‘There are no known cures.’ I would never ‘get better.’: Woman diagnosed with Gastroparesis, Elher’s Danlos Syndrome, ‘I’m going to enjoy the life I have’
“I was on a fully liquid diet and throwing up daily. I felt like the world was judging me for not being ‘normal.’ I genuinely thought I might starve to death. No one can tell me what my life will look like in five years.”
‘There was a young family at the airport. Only one set of luggage though. He was freshly shaven, 3 large bags. They called for boarding, he picked his daughter up and kissed her goodbye. She didn’t want to let him go.’
“We got to our seats on the flight and he pulled out his phone. He was doing what we all do. He wanted to take photos for his wife and his daughter to keep them, but he was too embarrassed because of all the fancy businessmen who might see it and judge him.”
‘I arrived weighing only 3-pounds, with my organs outside my body. It was a complete shock to my parents. ‘Everything is fine,’ my guardian angel told my mother to keep her calm.’: Woman beats all odds after being born with Exomphalos, goes on to have own child
“I was bullied for looking different. I would get called ‘inside out girl,’ a ‘freak’ and ‘alien.’ It got nastier, telling me everyone would be happier if I was dead, and that I should kill myself.”
‘I picked him up from daycare. His little legs had bruises all over them. He was only 4 months old, so he wasn’t crawling yet. There was no obvious explanation.’: Son diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia after mysterious bruising
“My husband inquired about the bruising. He was told that, ‘babies just bruise easily,’ and the bump was just a birthmark. Our minds were filled with fear and uncertainty and our stomachs were in knots. Feelings of anger crept up inside of me.”
‘She asked if I was doing okay, and if my marriage was okay. I was taken aback and said, ‘Of course.’: Friend shares wise advice that has kept them happily married for 33 years
“She said, ‘When your husband comes home from work, and you’ve been running around with the kids all day, you expect him to come home and help you, and when he doesn’t, you’re angry. I rolled my eyes and thought… ‘Yeah, I know.’ She smacked me.”
‘Many of Micah’s behaviors are out of the ordinary and at times downright bizarre. The reactions of others to Micah and his antics have been varied.’
“I suspect most parents have an inner radar that measures the character of others by the way they treat our children, but this is especially true for those of us who are parents of children with special needs.”