“When you get the diagnosis. When the relationship completely falls apart. When mental illness becomes a real thing, not just something you hear about. When the company downsizes. When that person who was supposed to be there, isn’t. As you dig yourself out of the rubble, look back with lessons learned. Sometimes it takes the worst things to wake us up to the best things.”
‘It’s been a hard year. Just take the next breath. Make the next decision. Keep going, even when everything within you is begging you to stop.’: Woman reminds us to keep pushing through, even when ‘life as you knew it ceases to exist’
‘As a mom, you just KNOW. Something didn’t feel right. Cars zipped by on the busy street. I trembled as we made our way to the front of the building. We were only a few steps away. I wanted to run, but I didn’t.’
“I wish I could’ve jumped into one of those passing cars and pretended it never happened. That I hitchhiked, ran away, disappeared. I thought we could find someone to ‘fix’ my son. As the woman in the office spoke, I couldn’t take my eyes off her mouth. I knew the word that would come. I didn’t believe her.”
‘I spent hours searching, which told me my daughter had autism and was mentally impaired. I cried and cried for weeks, absolutely devastated my child was ‘not like the rest.’
“I started to notice she wasn’t ‘just like her sister’ around 9 months old. She still didn’t have her first teeth, and was barely babbling any words, let alone noises.”
‘Eli and his biological brother who went to another family have lived 45 minutes from each other for their entire lives, and have never met. Until now.’: Adoptive parent’s son reunites with brother decade later
“Her biggest fear was that she would regret this decision for the rest of her life. We never heard from her again. 10 years later, we received a message.”
