“As it hit midnight, I felt this overwhelming urge to call you. I knew something wasn’t right. I fell to the floor in shock. ‘Your sister has taken her life.’ I could not believe you were gone.”
‘I begged for you to stay the night, but you said you had to go. I gave you a big hug, not knowing it would be the last. You told me you would see me soon. I believed you.’
‘When I lost my father at 18, you were there. You didn’t force me to talk about my emotions. You shared your father with me when I no longer had one.’
“As young parents I would call you crying because the task of being an adult was too overwhelming. I didn’t feel like enough of a wife or mother. You were kind to irrational postpartum me.”
‘I held my baby and cried. I’ve never felt so alone and helpless. But then, I felt a cold nose on my arm. He was looking up at me to say, ‘Don’t worry Mom, you’re not alone. You have me.’
“He is my Service dog, and my best friend. I needed a C-section. When the time, I gave him a wink and a short goodbye. ‘Can I see it?’ ‘It sure is a noisy little thing!’ ‘Let me see, let me see!’”
‘Do you know what women and mothers need? GIRLFRIENDS. Not in the Justin Bieber way, but in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants way. Except they’re yoga pants.’
“WOMEN NEED friends who can pig out on a big piece of cake and tell each other inappropriate jokes. That can grab our little cherubs and have a massive sleepover, binge watching TV shows with wine. Hands up if this is what you need.”
‘My daughter is my best friend, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.’
“I’m well aware that many parenting experts and the majority of the general public think it not wise to be your child’s friend. ‘You are their parent, not their friend,’ they say. What do I tell them? Nothing, because I don’t need them to approve of my parenting decisions.”
‘Before my father’s sudden death last year, I thought I understood what to expect about grief. But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for how different this unexpected loss would feel.’
“It hit me like a stab to the heart. I was hurt. I felt confused. Why had I not even been asked, when a year ago I would have been?”
‘My closest friends decided to leave me forever. My core group was gone. My heart was broken. New friends? It is terrifying to put yourself out there. Girls can be mean. Women can be vicious.’
“I can prepare and clean my house for 3 hours the 1st few times you come for a visit. But I can only pretend it is usually this clean for so long before you find out the truth. One day you will stop in because you forgot your sweater, and you will see the underwear one of my boys flung on the couch and the dinner dishes piled up from last night.”
‘My partner of 4 years left with no explanation. I was blindsided with an earth-shattering, life-changing conversation.’
“He came into the bedroom to wake me up, just as he had done every day of our relationship. Only today was different. My entire life had been flipped upside down in an instant, and no matter how hard I tried to get it back, it was gone.”
‘Right away I knew something was wrong. When the officer told us that he’s so sorry, but Mark died in a car accident, I completely lost it.’
“I know without a doubt my baby brother Mark put us together to save my life.”
‘I accidentally got pregnant with my best friend’s baby, and I wouldn’t change a thing.’
“I took out my phone and, with a violently shaking hand, I called Egg. ‘I did another, and it’s positive. There’s a cross. It’s faint, but it’s definitely there.'”
