“That night, while on our big red couch in our cozy den, my mom turned to me and asked, ‘Kaila, are you gay?’ I spilled my heart out. She didn’t interrupt. She didn’t insert her feelings or her worries. She simply listened, and assured me how much she loves me.”
“My house seemed unusually quiet. If you are a parent, you know this can be a dangerous sign. ‘Mom, leave!’ They covered their paper. Now I was really curious!”
“I was handed a sheet with a human diagram instructing me to ‘shade the painful areas.’ I shaded the whole body.”
“It’s the over-sharers vs. the internalizers. It’s men vs. women. It’s those who believe anxiety and depression need pills vs. the ones who think those guys and gals should just ‘be happy.'”
“They’ll always need you, Mama. Always. Just in different ways.”
“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be a mom to 10 children.”
“I did not want to carry, create, or be responsible for another life. What will your partner do if he decides he wants children?’ Some called it extreme, I personally felt it was me being responsible.”
“We were having a baby 6 weeks early. ‘I need to hear her cry!’ I entered the world of the unknown.”
“I’ll never forget being told to catheterize our 5-day-old baby. I didn’t even know that was possible. When they strapped her little arm, I nearly fainted.”
“She cried and asked me if she could hug me ‘pandemic’ and all. We embraced as the cashier got teary-eyed. In five minutes, I managed to make two strangers smile.”
