“We vowed to love each other ‘in sickness and in health.’ Little did we know how vividly those vows would be tested. I became acutely ill. I remember running out of a patient’s room to throw up. I felt as though I was the one who ought to be in the hospital bed. I was diagnosed with a total dysfunction of my autonomic nervous system. Illness has taken away much, but it has taught me even more.”
“We officially got the great news and shouted it loud for all to hear. We were on cloud 9. Everything was fun and exciting. Until it wasn’t.”
“Often our first is when we are young, in high school even. It’s the idealistic love—the one that seems like the fairy tales we read as children. In this type of love, how others view us is more important than how we actually feel. It’s a love that looks right.”
“He pats my shoulder kindly and before walking away he says, ‘Everything is going to be okay. God always has a plan.’”
“Nobody told my mom she was ruining our lives because we played until the street lights were on. But now as moms, we don’t survive.”
“We had a surprise pregnancy. Unfortunately, that ended in a loss of our little one which hit us pretty hard. We choose to leave everything up to fate and not prevent another future pregnancy. Sure enough, 5 months later we were expecting another little one! And again, it ended in a loss. So, we chose to hold off on the idea. Turns out fate had other things in mind.”
“Everyone knows my pool is green by this time of the year. My daughter spotted this idea and I figured why not try it.”
“The first time I ever injected methamphetamine I knew I was going to have a problem – because it was the best feeling I had ever felt. I dropped out of college and went on a binge. I was now forging checks, stealing from my family, selling drugs, and breaking into houses to support my habit. I never thought I would be able to get clean and sober.”
“I could hear my grandson crying behind me, yelling ‘YaYa, I falling!’”
“I began walking onto the bridge, passing a sign that held the suicide prevention lifeline number on it. ‘They can’t help me,’ I thought.”
