Happy
😁
‘I don’t have another three to four hours. My mom is dying!’ It was a 400-mile trip and they were complete strangers. ‘I’ll take you,’ I said. They looked at me in disbelief.’
“My mom has terminal cancer and it’s only a matter of seconds, minutes, hours before she passes.’ The passenger wheel was hanging off and their eyebrows were furrowed in distress. I had work very early the next morning. ‘Why don’t you come sit in my car for a bit?”
‘I cornered her. How was it possible someone so inexperienced could walk into a hospital and leave with another person’s baby? The little booklet read, ‘Your New Baby: An Instruction Manual.’
“He’d made so much progress that school year, and I knew being forced to leave his school would make things even more difficult for him if he was removed from his home.”
‘My mom quickly shut the door. ‘I’m gay,’ she said. It didn’t make sense. My parents slept in the same bed, said ‘I love you’ every day. I looked in her eyes and said 3 words I regret to this day.’
“‘I’m seeing a woman.’ My mom and dad were still married. My thoughts were spinning. ‘You remember her, right? We both nodded our heads. In fact, I loved going over to her house. The next question out of my mother’s mouth floored me. I was shocked.”
‘Remember, no matter what the testing results show, your son is the same little boy he was before you walked through my office door.’ She handed me a box of tissues. I still had a feeling though, there was ‘more.’
“The door opened and we walked up a flight of stairs. My legs felt weak and the stairwell felt like it was closing in on us. I wanted to turn back around. I wanted to believe it was all a mistake. I knew it. I felt it. I had been feeling it for years.”
‘Maybe you’re pregnant,’ she said. At 11:19 p.m. in a Target bathroom, I took a test. Two faint little lines. I kept the secret from my husband.’
“He blew up the air mattress in our living room and held me while I cried. I drove myself and a teenage girl from Chicago to Ohio. I felt myself start to bleed. That 17-year-old girl was there for me when she did not have to be.”
‘I cried and wept uncontrollably because of how he was going to be made fun of, and thought of as less or not worthy. I never want my child to feel that hurt and pain. The sadness was so deep, it crushed my soul.’
“I know something about one of the children you don’t. You see two children holding hands and playing on a playground. Nothing special, just cute as usual. Children playing like they usually do, like they should be doing. But it is so much more than just that.”
‘We needed a surrogate and she was 60 years old. My mother-in-law said, ‘Oh, I love being pregnant!’ We laughed at the unrealistic gesture. She couldn’t have a baby, could she?’
“Cele hugged her softly, grabbed her hand, and whispered in her ear, ‘You don’t have to worry about Elliot. I promise to take care of your boy as if he were mine.”
‘Casey had no idea what was happening to the woman he married. He thought I was no longer happy in our marriage. All he wanted was the woman he married. I could not do this one thing.’
“I became very closed off and did not want to communicate with my husband, the one I was supposed to be sharing my life with. I felt like I was letting him down, when in reality all he wanted from me was the woman he married.”
‘My son begged me to wear a dress. I could see the pure joy on his face. The next morning, my heart raced as we dropped him off at school. Then I got the phone call.’
“I heard parents snickering as we walked by. I hoped and prayed he would be okay. When I picked him up, I asked, ‘How was school? Where is your dress?’ His eyes filled up with tears. ‘I had a bad day,’ he said.”
‘She tried to warn me years before. ‘You’re crazy and a liar,’ I told her. We had nothing in common but our abuser. Desperate and alone, I told her my story. I’ll never forget what she did.’
“Three days later, I called him. ‘Can you come pick me up?’ When we got home, the first thing he did was point out my black eye. I opened the truck door, sore, bandaged, and broken when he said, ‘Wow, that looks pretty rough.’”
