“June 26 was the day the doctors told me my second daughter has cancer. 2 days after my second wedding anniversary. 5 days after my 30th birthday. I begged for my 7-year-old to understand why she couldn’t hold baby sister. ‘She’s very sick’ I would say, and my heart ached with guilt.”
“Spoiler alert. I left my husband. We are divorced. The relationship is over. Our marriage failed. I had to admit that my husband was an addict. My ability to hide it from everyone was over in the most public of ways. I had to tell a police officer that my husband was an addict after he finished taking pictures of the handprints, cuts, grass stains and rug burns that were all over my body.”
“A few weeks after our honeymoon I started feeling ill. I couldn’t place my symptoms and chalked it up to some sort of virus. This was the beginning of our first ‘plot twist.’ A little advice never take your first pregnancy test when your home alone. I’ve never cried like that in my whole life. Those two lines showed up before the minute was even up. I took another. Yup, still pregnant.”
“I hope they see a woman who just shows up—even if it’s with a messy bun and overstretched yoga pants. A woman who stood, flopped, failed, fell, then rose again when she was ready. She didn’t fake it until she made it, she just came in and was honest about who she was.”
“I had no motivation to brush my teeth, shower. No motivation to play with my kids. I was anxious my husband was going to leave for someone better who had their stuff together. It was me sitting on the couch responding to messages of ‘How are you doing?’ and replying ‘really good’ knowing it was a lie. You need a friend that doesn’t care if your house is a mess because you need to clean your mind before your house. And you need that friend to be you.”
“’Our baby is high risk! My poor husband is used to me being a bit dramatic, but he stayed calm even in this situation, asking me to repeat our diagnosis. ‘SUA, Single Umbilical Artery.’ They said she’ll be small… that’s all I could focus on – she was going to come early.”
“It was later on, after an ‘accidental Facebook message’ to the ‘wrong Danny’ that fate would bring them together. 107 days before what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, her wedding day, she got the most heart-stopping phone call. Her fiancé was in an accident. One he wouldn’t make it out alive from.”
“You need to listen to the doctors. You need to breathe. Right now, you can’t see past those hospital walls. One day you will. One day you’ll see the beauty in all they did for your baby girl. One day you’ll be forgive the neurosurgeon who you found so blunt and cold. One day you will be thankful Eva was in your arms, and not on an operating table, when that last breath came.”
“I did it. I obliged. I smiled and pretended to have fun. I slept in that teeny tiny space. But I paid for it the next morning. Boy, did I ever. Y’all. I can’t do that anymore. I’m too old, or too grouchy, or too in-love with sleep. Whichever it may be, I just can’t do that anymore. I’d give just about anything for my 16-year-old body again.”
“He looked at me like ‘but I don’t get it, momma, I’m okay. I’ll just get up.’ He collapsed again. I ran over to him, trying to give him water. Confused. Panicked. I didn’t know what was going on. Was he over heated? Dehydrated? I’m a nurse. Why didn’t I know?! Figure it out. Figure it out I kept telling myself. It took only ONE hour from the time we left the water for Oliver to breathe his last breath.”
