“My friend introduced me to a better way to get high: injecting. He left when I got pregnant. I looked at myself in the mirror. ‘What are you doing? You are worth so much more.’ I wanted my kids to have love, but first, I had to find it myself.”
‘At 19, I got pregnant and relapsed. My son wasn’t enough to stop me. I continued to use behind his back. I went back to hiding it, and was caught by my son’s father.’
‘My husband told me breast implants would help ‘spice things up’. I was 22 and wanted to feel feminine. I constantly found him viewing pornography, which made me feel undesirable.’
“My joints were swollen and I couldn’t wear my wedding ring anymore. My hair started falling out in chunks that would clog the drain. I figured it was just part of being a new mom and shook it off. No doctor could figure out what was wrong.”
‘My son woke from his coma. ‘Dad’s in heaven. I saw him there.’ I was startled. ‘Mom, I saw your other 2 kids, too.’ He was an only child. I knew what he was taking about, but how did he know?’
“In the blink of an eye, my life changed. One second. One stoplight. There were no sirens, no warning signs. I remember saying, ‘Please heal my son and let him live.’ He was mad at me. ‘Why did you pray for me, mom? I wish I could’ve stayed with dad.’ My heart broke.”
‘There’s not just one healthy baby. There’s TWO!’ My husband fell to the floor in shock. I had a huge pit in the bottom of my stomach. ‘There must be some mistake!’
“She stepped out of the room to give my OB a call. My mind went crazy. She must’ve been calling for backup. I was crying in complete confusion. Two? TWINS? No one gets pregnant and thinks ‘Yay! I’m going to have babies!’ It’s always, ‘Yay! I’m going to have A baby!’ But I had this strange feeling in my chest.”
‘My wife must regret spending her life with me. If she met someone different, she’d have perfectly healthy children,’ I told myself. ‘He is one of 34 people known to have this.’ My heart sank. ‘What? In the country?’ ‘No, in the world.’
“I remember thinking, ‘Maybe we just aren’t the best of parents.’ Little did I know my wife was secretly researching and had discovered a condition. One day, she showed me a video. My heart sunk. I felt dizzy. Straight away, I knew this was what our boy had.”
‘Help me get daddy out!,’ she begged. ‘He won’t like being dirty.’ I took her to see his grave. She started digging up the dirt, crying her little heart out. We sobbed until we had no more tears to cry.’
“She was 3. That was the last time I took her to his grave. She told me her ‘heart hurt too’ much and she didn’t want to go back. She asks if our family can die and ‘be a star in the sky with daddy.’ I go straight into Mommy mode and reassure her we can’t be stars. It’s not our time.”
‘For 23 years, he wrote letters expressing deep remorse. ‘He is the most impeccable inmate,’ the district attorney said. I had to do something I struggled with for decades: forgive him.’
“I saw the shock in his eyes. ‘This is the best birthday gift I’ve ever received,’ he said, sobbing in my arms. We were together again for the first time in years.”
‘I can’t live like this anymore!’ Binge, purge, starve, repeat. I spent hours fantasizing about food. When my brother asked to play, I snapped at him and plugged calories into my app.’
“I had only wanted to lose 15 pounds before school started. I remember searching ‘fastest ways to lose weight’. I saw picture upon picture of skin-and-bone bodies. I’d never seen anything like it, except in German concentration camps. I was repulsed and intrigued.”
‘She couldn’t stop looking over to where her brother would have been, had he survived. I couldn’t help but feel he was lying there, letting her know he was present, and will always be with her.’
“‘You’re having a boy AND a girl!’ I thought to myself, ‘One of each. How perfect!’ When I arrived and saw what she had set up, I lost it. I knew I had to honor James somehow. She smiled countless times in his direction.”
‘I bet all the girls at school have a crush on you,’ he said. He tore a receipt and wrote his phone number down. I walked out of my front door on a school night and hopped in his car.’
“My mom was distracted when he passed the information to me and said, ‘I would love to help you figure out what you want to do when you grow up.’ Then my mom chimed in about how great I was at sales. That was his siren. That was his bridge. That was his free ticket.”