“I always worried about her. I had to be a ‘big brother.’ I protected her. We planned an outdoor wedding. This barn had a lovely garden, and a beautiful path to a place I imagine heaven looks like. It was there, we saw my sister again.”
‘Drive carefully. I love you.’ Mom said, hugging us. 10 minutes later, she got a call. It was an unfamiliar number. ‘Your daughter had an accident. She wants you to come.’
‘We got pregnant before marriage. I was told, ‘Your marriage is going to fail.’ I felt hopeless. I told my husband, ‘I just can’t continue anymore.’
“I felt like I was not giving my children the life they should have. In that moment, I felt trapped. So, my husband went into our bedroom and found the loose change that he had been collecting for a few years.”
‘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.”
‘I heard my name. ‘Are you Suzanne?’ A woman approached me. I was confused, even scared I had done something wrong. ‘Yes?,’ I said nervously.’
“He cried for what felt like 24 straight hours. He felt like an idiot for believing. I didn’t have all the answers. I didn’t really have any.”
‘Some of the best Grandmas live in heaven. That’s what I tell my sons when they ask where Nana lives, and if we can go to her house, just once, to see what it’s like there.’
“I want them to know they will lose people. People they love, people that are important to them. But just because we lose someone, doesn’t mean they are gone.”
‘My mom wanted me to take photos of her, but on one condition…’
“I call this series ‘Grandma: Gone Wild’. She gave them to my Dad for Christmas tonight… Check out his adorable schoolboy reaction at the end!”
‘I remember waking up and wondering why Mike and my mother were talking about something random and not the baby. What happened to the baby?’
“They told us many times that our best option was to take his breathing tube out and he would either pass in my arms or thrive.”
‘And what does mom want this year?’ Crying, I quietly answered, ‘A New Life?’ Santa hugged me and whispered in my ear, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
“Shockingly, when asked what he wanted he said, ‘I don’t know. I have everything I need.’ WOW. What 3 year old doesn’t have a list a mile long?”
‘Rather than give me nothing, this student took the time to take every marshmallow out of her cereal to put in a bag—for me.’
“You see, 100% of my school is on free/reduced lunch. They also get free breakfast at school every day of the school week. This kiddo wanted to get my something so badly but had nothing to give.”
‘This is the first Christmas they will not be home, at least not in their home. They’ll be in their NEW home, which doesn’t feel like home to Dad, and mom know longer knows where home is.’
“As hard as he tries to be happy, all we can feel is his sadness. We will continue to take him shopping – he loves doing anything with us. Mom doesn’t know it’s almost Christmas, so will do our best to get dad through the holidays.”
