“Saying ‘I love you’ when they are going to bed is not nearly enough. You can’t be over-present. They want our time. Our warmth. Our interest in their lives. There are many fathers who aren’t engaged enough (or at all) with their daughters. That crushes me. This is one of life’s most honorable privileges.”
‘What could your excuse possibly be, Dad? You’ve known about the dance for weeks!’: Single father says dads aren’t ‘showing up’ enough, ‘I am doing all I can to cherish her’
‘All I could muster at the party was, ‘Are you serious?’ over and over, as if my husband would use such heavy words to joke. ‘Yes, they found him in his room.’: Woman recalls complicated relationship with incarcerated father
“‘I have to get naked and bend over. They want to make sure I’m not sneaking anything in my butt cheeks.’ After a revolving door of drugs and women, and a lifetime of waiting for you to change, I gave up. It felt like a knife on your exposed flesh. I could see it in your eyes but that wasn’t enough to make me say ‘Dad.’ I’d be damned before I let you in again.”
‘Her eyes looked up at me in panic. ‘Mommy, it’s blood.’ We were just in the ER and everything said she was fine. My stomach about hit the floor.’: Family says goodbye to their ‘forever Valentine’ after battle with flu
“Around 6 a.m., I heard her crying by my bed. ‘Mommy, my head hurts, my throat hurts, and my chest hurts really bad.’ This child never cried. She was breathing weird and for a bit, I thought she was being dramatic. Then in her weak, sweet, little voice, she asked, ‘Mommy, am I going to die?’ Something wasn’t sitting right. Every few seconds, she would say, ‘Mommy’ or ‘Hello,’ just so I knew she was doing okay.”
‘We were at dinner when I said, ‘Hell, give me another drink. I may take up smoking too.’ Kinsley was as healthy as a horse and in a week span, she was dead.’: Mom loses daughter unexpectedly to flu
“I was happily drinking a margarita. They all looked at me like I was crazy. I replayed every second leading up to her death. I realized there was no amount of science that could save her, but why her?”
‘My ex picked up our daughter from a visit, smiling at his phone and texting a whole lot. I knew he had met someone else.’: Woman says ‘put on your big panties and make co-parenting work’
“I went to my ex’s wedding. His fiancé asked me to be there with them, so I went. I was terrified. ‘Wow, a woman who hardly knows my daughter is going out of her way to welcome her back home?’ That was the moment I realized, she is the one for my ex and our daughter.”
‘She showed me the texts, shaking. ‘My son and his friends were planning to splash a milkshake on her face.’: Mom urges ‘bullying affects everyone’
“I was at the beach with my kiddies when I saw a woman crying. She left from yelling at her 15-year-old son and went for a walk because she didn’t want him to see her tears. She found out he has been bullying a girl at school and took his phone. Shaking, she showed me the group texts.”
‘You woke up Kobe’s wife and went to bed a widow. Today, you’re going to do something no wife ever wants to do.’: Widow pens open letter to Vanessa Bryant on day of Kobe Bryant’s memorial service
“I remember walking into the church on a warm June day and seeing my husband’s casket at the end of the aisle, draped with the American flag. Like so many of us before you, you gained membership into a club nobody wants to join, and on top of that, the whole world is watching. I promise you will come out of this on the other side one day.”
‘I could feel her dark, navy lips saying, ‘Hi, Momma! I miss you!’ I couldn’t feel anything but the the weight of her dead body.’: Woman grieves 2-year anniversary of daughter’s death, ‘Grief will forever be part of our family’
“Grief looks like walking around Hobby Lobby with a beautiful, happy baby boy and tears running down my cheeks. How do you even pick flowers for your daughter’s grave? Can anything I buy show how much I love and miss her? My rainbow baby is making the cashier laugh. I wonder what she thinks I’m buying the flowers for, and if she can feel the grief roll off of me.”
‘He never asked why we needed the help, he simply said, ‘Things will get better.’: After a miscarriage and husband’s layoff, woman says, ‘Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.’
“Our life has been a series of indescribable highs and unspeakable lows. We welcomed my baby half-sister in the world and into our home. The father we shared died and we gained custody. I was in the midst of a miscarriage. We were heartbroken. I don’t know if I’ve felt lower than I did the day we traveled 40 minutes to a food bank just so we could eat.”
‘I know for sure that life is fleeting. It’s short but always beautiful.’: Widow reminds others that ‘love doesn’t end when a loved one dies’ in wake of Kobe Bryant’s death
“I find myself asking, once again, why bad things happen. When I get to heaven, I have a lot of questions for God. I try to never let people wonder how I feel about them, because what if I don’t get the chance to tell them again? Imagine what a wonderful place this world would be if we all were just born understanding how precious life is.”
