He starts to tell you, ‘My liver is hurting; I really need to stop.’ ‘I threw up a little blood. Don’t worry, I’m going to get sober.’ You start making deals with God, who you haven’t talked to in years. ‘Don’t leave him,’ you tell yourself. ‘It’s only temporary.’ Then…he never makes it. He relapses because he hates himself sober too.”
“My daughter cried for a birthday party. To be honest, I didn’t want to throw one at all. There were so many expectations as a mom to have everything perfect. I gave in. ‘My son Nehemiah would be 8-years-old today. Hold your baby a little tighter today.’ It was my daughter’s 8th birthday. I broke down in tears.”
During their wedding reception, Jamie took the mic to thank their guests for coming, or so Charlie thought. Instead, the beaming bride looked directly at her new husband and handed him a box.
“I was at the beach with my kiddies when I saw a woman crying. She left from yelling at her 15-year-old son and went for a walk because she didn’t want him to see her tears. She found out he has been bullying a girl at school and took his phone. Shaking, she showed me the group texts.”
“This was the text that would change my life: ‘When you get home, I think we need to go to the hospital.’ I stormed into the hospital, ‘My wife is in labor!’ The nurse had a leg, I had a leg, and I was about to help deliver our son. I remember saying, ‘That was the craziest sh*t I have ever experienced.’ I would kill for him, and I mean that in the sincerest way.”
“I received a call from my social worker. ‘Can you take in an 11-year-old boy, just for the weekend?’ His birth family abandoned him at 2 years old and now, his adoptive family of 9 years left him at a hospital like some disposable object, never to return. All their promises of a forever family were thrown out the window. Helplessly crying tears of anger, I asked, ‘Where will he go?’ There were no family members to contact, no foster homes available. ‘He’ll be placed in a group home.’ There was no way I could let that happen.”
“Life seemed perfect. Everything was falling into place. Then a tragic, freak accident changed everything. ‘Your bones resemble a scrambled jigsaw puzzle.’ I am learning to walk again. ‘Whatever happens, we are in this together.’ He had to lift me up, carry me around, bathe me, and feed me. His life changed just as much as mine did.”
“I was in the best shape of my life when I got pregnant with our rainbow baby. Holding my 8-day-old baby, all I saw was that belly. I felt like a failure when the weight didn’t fall off a month or two later.”
“During church, I kept feeling my phone vibrate. After the third call, I decided to step into the hall. I noticed a voicemail from a friend. ‘Hannah, we have a liver. I need you to call me back NOW.’ The phone slid out of my hand and dropped to the floor. In complete shock, I whispered, ‘I got the call, Mom,’ as tears started running down my face. She went ghost white. At 5.am. they strapped me down to the operating table. ‘No, I can’t do this. I want out.’ I lost it.”
“She was just lying there with medications keeping her heart going and a ventilator breathing for her. All I could do was hold her hand and talk to her, tell her how much I loved her, how much those three babies need her, and beg her to come back to us. “
