“‘Ms. Pollard, we’re having another bad day. Can you come?’ My boy is silent. Something seems different. I pull him in close, ask what’s going on. It’s mid-September and he’s asking if he can have a race car for Christmas. But it’s not about the gift to him. It’s about his need to feel safe. If I can reassure him he’ll get that race car for Christmas, he knows he’s safe until then. No one will come pick him up. At least for 3 more months.”
‘Here we go again!’ My son’s principal called me. He’d been written up.’: Adoptive mom ‘cried and cried’ after learning her ‘trauma-ravaged’ son was rewarded for being ‘courageous’
‘She was born with her umbilical chord around her neck, her face blue from lack of oxygen. She came into the world feet first. She always goes about things her own way, birth was no exception.’
“I had no idea what was happening, but I knew my mom was behind a cold, closed door that I wasn’t allowed to go through. I wish I could’ve held her hand – she needed it.”
‘I told him his grandfather was dying. ‘He doesn’t look good, and may not recognize you.’ He said, ‘that’s fine Mom, I’ll just sit with him then.’ I looked over, and saw this.’
“An hour later, my brother called me. ‘Meghan I just found dad in the bathroom, he isn’t responsive.’ ‘Facetime me, let me try and talk to him!’ ‘No Meghan, I’m telling you, there’s something wrong.’ The image of my dad is something I’ll never forget.”
‘A pickup truck was following me. He asked if I would ‘spend some time with him,’ and was offering me a lot of money. I was thinking just like the addict I was. ‘Sure, let me lock up my bike.’
“Last week, this particular lieutenant came in and I had a Deja-vu moment remembering when he was dressed as a doctor, and I got into his pickup. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ He looked at me like I was crazy. ‘No I’m sorry, I don’t.’”
‘Katie, get off the couch!,’ was the last thing I heard before witnessing the shattering sound of the gun.’
“I’ll never forget looking down at my trembling hands as if I was a character in a war movie. Except, this wasn’t fictional. This was real and raw and urgent; no life experience could have prepared me for the intensity of what I was to see, hear, feel, and ache over.”
‘We planned a weekend getaway. Instead, I took him to the ER to learn his cancer battle was coming to an end’: Pizza shop delivers dying man’s favorite slice 225 miles away
“Without hesitation Dalton asked what kind of pizza we wanted and told my father he would bring it to us. My dad clarified we were in Indianapolis, at least 3.5 hours away. Dalton said he understood, and would leave after he closed the store.”
‘The hospital had never seen anyone like him. They said he wouldn’t walk, he may even have fetal alcohol syndrome, but he needed a home, TODAY.’
“Child waiting in hospital for 2.5 months, can’t find placement. Has no femur bones and is medically fragile. We made our decision, but what would our friends and family think of us?”
‘He’s out here everyday in the hot sun trying to earn money, and not beg for it or rob for it.’
“I barely even know him but he has touched and inspired me so much.”
‘For a brief second, I thought this was the same old hustle where a homeless guy just wants money for drugs.’
“I could see in this man’s eyes and humble demeanor he was serious.”
‘My oldest son wanted to ask his Dad (as he calls him) to adopt him, and officially take his stepfather’s last name.’
“When the day got here, even I was unaware of what was going on. I was just as shocked as he was.”
