“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.”
‘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’
‘The world feels scary, my baby—but being with you is exactly what I need. I find deep gratitude in knowing you’re one thing I won’t have to wonder when I’ll see again.’: Mom ‘thankful’ for baby during national crisis
“You got off the slide last week, neither of us knowing it would be the last time you slid down it for a while. Soon you’ll wave goodbye to your teachers and friends, and I can’t tell you when you’ll see them again. I know my patience is thinner, my fuse shorter lately, but my calm comes when bath time is over and the lights go out. In all the uncertainty, my constant is you.”
‘We think he’s been hit by a car.’ I wrapped the dog up in a blanket, and waited for the police.’: Woman’s act of kindness saves epileptic dog, ‘It brings happy tears to my eyes’
“I saw a dog galloping down the center of the opposite lane of travel. It was below freezing, snowing, windy, and rapidly getting dark. I’m a dog owner and lover. My heart ached. 15 minutes later a black SUV came SCREAMING toward the small group of people around me so fast.”
‘My daughter was emergency rushed back into the states from El Salvador. As she showed me all her photos, it occured to me: we have everything we need.’: Woman urges us to ‘count our blessings’ during quarantine
“Everything has shut down. Most of us are going to spend weeks, maybe months feeling restless, worried, and angry. While we’re stuck in our places, take a good hard look around and see all we have. These commodities are BLESSINGS we forget to count.”
‘When a mother says she needs help, that’s exactly what she meant! She is not saying she is incapable.’: Dad urges ‘there is no human being in the world able to give up as much as a mother’
“When a mother says she’s tired, that’s all she meant! She did not say she wants to forget her baby exists. When you arrive at a mother’s disorganized house, it doesn’t mean the house is always disorganized. When you listen to a mother screaming, it doesn’t mean she just screams. She has spoken 300 times that day in a normal tone. Every day she gives up her own life, to live the life of another being.”
‘An 80-year-old woman cracked her car window and explained, in tears, ‘We’re afraid to go in the store. We don’t have any family to help us.’: Woman urges ‘offer help to anyone you can’ during coronavirus hysteria
“I went to the grocery store this afternoon. As I was walking in, I heard a woman yell to me from her car. ‘We’re afraid to go in the store. We don’t have any family to help us.’ In tears, she handed me a $100 bill and a grocery list, and asked if I would be willing to buy her groceries.”
‘OMG, I can’t believe someone thought your baby had Down Syndrome! He’s perfect and gorgeous looking. How terrible.’: Mom to son with Down Syndrome urges ‘all babies are beautiful’
“Imagine at your most vulnerable time as a parent, looking at your child’s hospital notes and seeing the words ‘facial features: abnormal.’ Perfection is not dependent on how many chromosomes you have.”
‘Wait! Take this!’ Little feet came running. ‘She wants you to take her favorite card so she’s sure you’ll come back.’: Young woman adopted at 26 becomes advocate for other foster children
“At age 4, her vocabulary includes words that would break your heart. Her home is a revolving door of state workers, strangers, appointments. She looked up with piercing blue eyes, her hand outstretched towards me. ‘You know she wants you to take her favorite card so she’s sure you’ll come back, right?’ With tears in my eyes, I placed it safely in the front pocket of my purse. ‘I promise I’ll come back for you.'”
‘Dear teenage sister, I tried commenting on this photo you posted, but noticed you deleted it 2 minutes later because it didn’t get enough likes.’: Woman pens touching letter to younger sister
“I write this with a lump in my throat, tears in my eyes. I feel sick at the thought kids your age don’t know how amazing you are, how LOVED you are. Not just ‘liked’ on Instagram, but insurmountably loved. Here. In real life. Just as you are. I promise no app, no social media platform, or amount of internet followers will ever scratch the surface of your worth.”
‘I ended up at a play-date with my daughter’s bully. Her pain and hurt spilled out over coffee. I left with guilt.’: Mom encourages daughter to show bully grace, ‘We don’t know what others are going through’
“When my daughter told me about her bully, I advised her to ‘stay away from her.’ Weeks later, in walks her bully’s mother. Here I was, right across the table, with so many things to say. But I didn’t. For the first time in my life, I shut my mouth and listened. This mom was having a really hard day. A really hard life, actually. There was nothing she could do to stop it. She knew it had spilled out onto her daughter and that…that part hurt her most.”
