“I was home alone. I completely broke down after this phone call. A part of me believed he didn’t have it. Maybe a part of me just wished he didn’t have it. ‘Look at him,’ my husband told me. ‘Think of how hard he fought to be here. He is the best thing to ever happen to us, and we have this under control.’ As long as we all had each other, we would live the best life – and I believed him.”
“The pain got so bad. I pulled over on the side of the freeway and called my dad, begging him to come get me. I became confused, disoriented. I remember thinking I could understand why my mother took her own life. It made me realize I either had to fight for my own health, or continue to fade away. I had to be stronger than my mom was. I couldn’t stop fighting.”
“This photo was taken 5 minutes before the doctor told me my tumor was cancerous. At our first ultrasound, my doctor found ‘a baseball size tumor’ on my ovary. She thought it was benign, but couldn’t tell me without biopsy. They don’t do that to pregnant women. ‘So I have to wait 9 months to find out if this thing is benign or cancerous?!’ My mind was racing. This little miracle inside me saved me from letting cancer go further.”
“‘Mom, can I go to a slumber party?’ It was 5 minutes away. Of course, we said yes. ‘Be careful. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ The mother of the birthday girl became ill, so she asked her daughter to host. Instead, she took our kids to the liquor store, brought 30-year-old men in the house. A helium tank was brought out. My daughter kept pulling her head away. The man insisted it wouldn’t hurt. Nobody saw it coming.”
“She said sorry so many times in the end that I lost count of how often she mentioned it. I wish I would have stopped right there in the middle of all that chaos that death brings and all the stress and regret that comes with it, and just grabbed her hand.”
“Family life will nickel and dime you. It’ll squeeze you until you’ve got nothing left. Then it’ll squeeze you even harder. And right when you think you’re completely tapped out and you don’t have what it takes… You walk in on a moment like this.”
“A man had a sign that said, ‘Tell your future for a gold coin.’ I laughed, and told him my name. He stared at me for a while, told me I had mysterious eyes, then finally said, ‘Tell little Laura it’s okay. She’s safe now. Know it’s going to be ok.’”
“I lost everything. I stepped out of jail with a few one-dollar bills and 3 cigarettes. I was missing a shoe, had blood on my shirt, and one of my fingernails was completely ripped off. I had taser burns on my arm and chest, and zero memory of my arrest. I faced the biggest decision of my life. I had to fight.”
“We purchased a vacation home at the river where we could bring our daughter. Our plan was to start showing Emma a world outside of hospitals. We planned an entire summer there, living happily ever after. Little did I know life had a different plan. ‘What happened?,’ I ask. Something inside me knew Danny was hurt. ‘Don’t go to the hospital, follow those firetrucks!’”
“Before I could prove myself, they already knew what they thought of me. Judgement straight away. To be honest, nothing feels more discouraging than not even getting a chance. Over the years, teachers just accepted the bullying. I can’t even remember how many times my parents spoke to the principal, but I’ll always remember him saying, ‘We don’t care.’ I was alone, scared, broken. It was my son that got me through the worst. When everyone else left me alone, he always offered a home to my soul.”
