“We did not go to court to fight over our son, as James’s parents had thought I would try to take him. But we sat down, talked, and through mediation, we legally share 50-50. James is an amazing father and a good man. And even though there are things he does in his personal life and with raising our son that I don’t always agree with, I know he wants the absolute best for him. It would be nothing but unfair and selfish to take that sweet boy away from his loving father.”
“Every time I leaned over my toilet and stuck my fingers down my throat, I would tell myself this was just what a disgusting person like me deserved. I was a shell of myself. I was too scared to kill myself. “Please don’t let me wake up.’ On the morning of my grandma’s funeral, I knew I was next.”
“I was particularly comfortable, stretched out in my tempur-pedic dream bed. I was mid-dream when I felt a poke. Startled, I looked up to find my son at my bedside. He leaned in and whispered, ‘Mommy, can I sleep with you?’ I looked at the clock. It was 1:18am. It’s been 700+ nights now, and each and every night he comes to my bedside.”
“I was at lunch with friends when my phone rang. I didn’t pull it out of my coat pocket. Soon, I got this overwhelming feeling to check it. My heart literally stopped. ‘It’s the adoption agency.’ I could barely get the words out. Both my friends yelled, ‘IS IT A BABY?!’ I rushed outside. There was a 2-pound baby born 3 months early. ‘He’s not breathing.’ We were presented a long list of medical issues. ‘Are we ready? Can we even do this?!’ We decided to let fate take over.”
“I was living two separate lives. ‘Just this one time,’ I told myself as I inhaled my first line of cocaine one month after my best friend’s funeral. I would wake up, do a line. Go to class, do a line in the bathroom. Go home, do a line. Then came the needle. I felt the warm release of the heroin shooting through my veins. My stepdad found me. I couldn’t move, my body instantly got cold. ‘Oh, sweetheart. You don’t look like an addict.’ I lay there for what felt like forever, fading in and out of consciousness.”
“I find myself asking, once again, why bad things happen. When I get to heaven, I have a lot of questions for God. I try to never let people wonder how I feel about them, because what if I don’t get the chance to tell them again? Imagine what a wonderful place this world would be if we all were just born understanding how precious life is.”
“We all experience difficult times in our lives. As much as I would love to push the negativity aside and focus on the positive, that’s not always possible. And I don’t think it’s healthy. True healing does not look like personal development books and good vibes only.”
“I asked him to get me something from my bag. He said, ‘Ummm why is there a Nerf gun in here?’ Mom hack level 1,000.”
“Sure, some days look like 50/50. I’ll cook dinner as he sets the table. I’ll do the dishes as he sweeps the floor. But a relationship is one day showing up 80, while giving grace when your partner can only show up 20. And one day showing up 30, while giving thanks to your partner who is showing up 70. We have chosen to never keep score.”
“When I was a little boy, my dad drove from our home in Harlan County down to Cherokee, North Carolina. That’s where Dad bought me my first store-bought toy: a wood-and-string bow and arrow, carved by the Cherokee on the reservation. Boy, I thought I was hot stuff. We were dirt poor. But my aim was improving, and years later, others noticed I could shoot. I was bad news for anyone who came up against me in competition.”
