“I want to watch you grow up. I want to see what you wear on your first day of school, who you fall in love with. I don’t want to miss a moment. If I wake up, I will fight for you every day. If I don’t, please don’t ever doubt the power of my undying, unrelenting, never-ending love for you.”
‘If I have surgery, I might not wake up. If I don’t, the tumors will grow, killing me anyway.’: Mom with 23 tumors pens heartbreaking love letter to her sons
‘You need to go home to your wife, not be in here with me tonight,’ mom told her newlywed doctor. She was their favorite patient. They loved her determination to fight.’: Daughter feels ’emptiness’ after her mom’s 15-year battle with cancer
“She was my best friend, my go to for everything. Our dream was to go to the beach and have a cabana boy for the day. On her 60th birthday, I made our dream come true. Unfortunately, she couldn’t put her toes in the sand as she was in a wheelchair, but we had the perfect day, cabana boy and all.”
‘She’s going to have emergency brain surgery.’ I screamed. What the hell would I do without a mom?’: 19-year-old daughter suddenly loses mother to stage 4 cancer, finds healing through ‘roller coaster’ of grief
“My parents frantically came down the stairs. The entire left side of my mom’s body was numb. My dad was taking her to the hospital. Contrary to my wishful thinking, my mom was not going to be the ‘miracle.’ There I was. 19 years old, trying to figure out how I would go on in a world without my mom in it.”
‘Something had changed. He’d never be the same again. I came undone. I was losing my husband.’: Mom loses husband to cancer shortly after giving birth
“‘Why? Why now?’ Alex had just become a dad. I couldn’t imagine my life without Alex. I didn’t know how I would raise our son alone and it killed me to think Ezra would never fully know his dad. I was watching my husband slowly die of cancer.”
‘I woke up with the worst pain. ‘They’re just headaches,’ I said. Something in my mom’s heart kept pushing. ‘There’s something in your brain,’ the doctor said. I was 11, and so confused.’
“I was rushed to the PICU. I tried to stay calm, but I was terrified. I couldn’t help but think, ‘How could I have done anything wrong to deserve this?’ I hid everything behind a smile, but I knew my life would never be ‘normal’ again.”
‘The guy who brought me to the party passed out. I should have left him, but I’m a loyal person. I fell asleep and was awoken by a man’s body on top of mine. I couldn’t move and yelled for help.’
“I remember telling my mom, ‘I would die if something happened to you.’ She always reassured me, ‘I’m not going anywhere Erica.’ I whole-heartedly believed she would live forever. Then she started complaining of severe headaches. Selfishly, I thought, ‘Well if God took my Grannie, he can’t take my mom too.'”
‘For the first 3 months everything seemed fine. At 4 months old, we noticed her soft spot looked different and started bulging from her head. Then, our lives changed forever.’
“One morning, Ellie woke up in extreme pain. We rushed to the ER. The MRI would give us news that would completely devastate our family. It never gets easier to watch her in pain when all you want to do, in your job as a mom, is take their pain away.”
‘I told him his grandfather was dying. ‘He doesn’t look good, and may not recognize you.’ He said, ‘that’s fine Mom, I’ll just sit with him then.’ I looked over, and saw this.’
“An hour later, my brother called me. ‘Meghan I just found dad in the bathroom, he isn’t responsive.’ ‘Facetime me, let me try and talk to him!’ ‘No Meghan, I’m telling you, there’s something wrong.’ The image of my dad is something I’ll never forget.”
‘His eyes would shake back and forth. He started throwing his head back, screaming at the top of his lungs. He had lost so much weight. Something was terribly wrong with my bundle of joy.’
“Three doctors came in. They told us we needed to sit down and relax. Nothing could ever have prepared us for what they were about to say. I just sat there, blank. He’s just a baby.”
‘Doctors said my surgery would be smooth, and all would go well. To my surprise, I woke up in the ICU with tubes coming out of me, double vision, and not able to walk.’
“In an instant, my whole world came crashing down. I knew I needed to call my mom. I had no idea how to break the news to her though. That’s a parent’s worst nightmare.”
