“It was cancer, and had spread. Here I was, married to the woman I will spend the rest of my life with, worried about how much of this new life my mother would be able to see.”
‘We were exactly 6 months from the wedding when she broke the news. They had found a lump in her breast. My mind went blank.’
‘If I count the times I’ve been told not to neglect myself as I need to be there for my son with autism, I would need more than 2 hands and 2 feet. Yesterday, I realized I’m not indestructible.’
“If you ask me whether I’m okay, the answer will be as it always is, ‘I’m okay. I have to be.'”
‘Goodbyes are harder now. When my son left for the military, he was 17. The next time I would see him would be when Chad died.’
“After 1 year, 7 months and 4 days, I got to surprise my son. All was right in the world for 14 hours. And, then it happened. He had to leave. It all came back. Panic. Fear. Tears. Why did he have to go?”
‘He said, ‘You can live without a stomach.’ My head started to spin.’
“The thought of removing such a major organ, my healthy stomach, sent shivers down my spine. Now I had a reason to go ahead and do it. I didn’t have to pull the trigger on my own gut.”
‘I had convinced myself I was just being paranoid. I was oblivious to the fact this could end up badly, so I went alone. It was supposed to be a chill day.’
“I noticed he was getting super clumsy. But he was a toddler, and most toddlers are naturally wobbly. Yet this felt different. He was holding on to the wall when he would walk, sometimes he would just fall right over. It was strange.”
‘It started with the dreams, but then it got real. I couldn’t deny it anymore.’: Grieving wife finds ‘signs, winks’ EVERYWHERE from late husband
“Before he got sick, we used to joke about ghosts and spirits. He would make fun of me and taunt me with things like Ouija boards. I told him if anything ever happened to me, I was going to come back and prove that spirits can come around. He laughed and said, ‘Okay, I’ll come back and show you, too.’ And boy, has he been showing me.”
