“My dad walked out of my life when I was 20 and never looked back. I wonder if you saw me in the street, would wave or just keep walking. See, all of my favorite things about myself are you. Your sense of humor, your ability to make friends, and really, really good hair. I call someone else ‘my dad’ now.”
‘It’s been 4 years since we last spoke. I heard you met someone new. Am I the bad guy, or does she know the truth and love you anyway?’: Woman abandoned by father says ‘you can’t base your self-love on who loves you’
‘When I was 12, something called coronavirus ripped through our country. It was so scary.’ She takes a moment to shake her head at the memory of it all.’: Mom imagines grandchildren’s questions about the quarantine, ‘It was the happiest time of my life’
“‘People were dying. There weren’t enough ventilators, or masks. Big cities were hit very, very hard,’ she says. She hesitates for a second, thinking back to this faraway time. ‘I think it changed us. It changed our country. It made us better.’”
‘Today my dad walked over 4 miles to my house so he could see baby Elliana through the window…again.’: New dad urges ‘stay home for the grandparents who want to hold their new grandchild more than anything’
“While my wife was pregnant, I don’t think an hour went by where my dad didn’t brag about becoming a grandpa soon. Now, his granddaughter is finally here and the only thing he can hold are pictures. It breaks my heart. If this grandpa can resist coming inside and loving on his first grandchild, I know the rest of us can do this too.”
‘He forgets appointments. He never knows the party dates and doesn’t feed him as I would. But our son lights up because daddy is ALWAYS there.’: Divorced couple learns to co-parent ‘to the level our son DESERVES’
“We were oil and vinegar 75% of the day, every single day, for the vast majority of our 14 years together. Many would say, ‘None of that is your problem. You shouldn’t have to work around that.’ He still often needs to be handled with grace, even if I don’t feel like he deserves it.”
‘Today my husband had to sit in the hallway, and listen through speaker phone, to hear our baby go to heaven with their sister.’: Mom grieves loss of baby alone, urges ‘please, just stay home’
“This was us. We didn’t get to grieve together. We couldn’t even hug and tell each other it would be okay or that we would survive this. A father couldn’t look at his baby one last time, and a mother had to get the worst news about their baby…alone.”
‘3 weeks after our trip to Disney, I stared at a black and white image with a mass that took up a third of my son’s brain.’: Dad urges ‘never take a day of normalcy for granted’ during quarantine after losing son to brain tumor
“We were isolated for 28 days in the hospital room. He was immunocompromised. Our world consisted of hand sanitizer, hospital masks, and surgical gloves to avoid contamination. As we watch the news, we hear the increasing mortality rates for coronavirus, some 3%. I would’ve given anything to hear those numbers for my son. Normalcy was ripped from our hands.”
‘He was homeless and I was embarrased by him. Now he’s free, and I’m chained by all the grace I couldn’t bear to give.’: Woman urges forgiveness after losing dad to overdose, ‘My regret is stronger than all the anger I felt for years’
“I got mad when his food stamp card was denied and I had to cover groceries. It wasn’t about the money. He’d comment on my ‘new haircut’ and I was enraged because he’d already seen it many times. It wasn’t about my hair. I drove him from doctor to doctor, rehab to rehab, short tempered. My regret is now stronger than all the anger I felt throughout the years.”
‘I wish I could hold her one more time. I’d give anything in the world to just be quarantined with her.’: Widows urges not to take quarantine for granted, ‘This is a season to take time for the ones we love’
“Don’t take this time for granted. There probably won’t be another season in our lives with so much time to be with the ones we love. We don’t know how this will end. We don’t know when this will end. But we do know that eventually, it will end. I’d give anything for Rachel to be here annoying the heck out of me. I’d give anything for her to be here loving me.”
‘Your tattoos will get in the way of a real job.’ I learned to collect his affirmation like a treasure hunt. ‘Am I taking the offer to make him notice me?’: Woman tries to repair relationship with dad, ‘We’re finally getting to know one another’
“I don’t really know my dad. I’ve heard more stories from others than I’ve heard from him. I’d go weeks without talking to him, months without seeing him, and we’ve always lived in the same town, only miles apart. When it all fell into place, I knew he would be my biggest fan.”
‘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.”
