“Our truck had been broken into, so we packed up our son and went to a nearby shop. I took pictures of him sleeping in the car seat as we waited. That night, his father worked overnight. When he came home at 7 a.m., I heard him say the worst words you could ever hear.”
‘He looks oddly pale,’ I said. I thought it was bad lighting. I felt him. Cold as ice. His father slammed the window shut. I couldn’t stop screaming!’
‘You’re an angel,’ he said to me after a night of being told I was worthless. The sun started to shine through the window, it reeked of booze and I had yet to sleep. I wanted to be that ‘angel.’
“My grandma passed away, and everything came crumbling down around me. I was alone. I needed him more than anything now. I needed his support, I needed him to hold me and listen to the speech I had prepared for her funeral. Instead, he did the exact opposite. ‘I need space,’ he said. SPACE?!”
‘Let’s go get our kids!’ We didn’t have a plan. One by one, they entered the room.’: Woman survives Route 91, Las Vegas Mass Shooting, adopts nieces, nephews in wake of siblings’ deaths
“‘It’s just fireworks.’ Reloading, shooting, reloading, shooting. I kept saying, ‘I shouldn’t be here, I have kids.’ A week later, the survivors planned a moment of silence at 10:04 p.m. I went outside, looked up at the stars. Suddenly, ash the took the sky. Our town was on fire. I’d just survived the worst mass shooting in American history, and we were now stuck in California’s deadliest wildfire.”
‘I arrived weighing only 3-pounds, with my organs outside my body. It was a complete shock to my parents. ‘Everything is fine,’ my guardian angel told my mother to keep her calm.’
“I was bullied for looking different. I would get called ‘inside out girl,’ a ‘freak’ and ‘alien.’ It got nastier, telling me everyone would be happier if I was dead, and that I should kill myself.”
‘853 days. That’s how much time my son spent with his biological parents before they both tragically passed away. While legally my adopted son, he is biologically my brother.
“Easton lost his mom to an overdose, and then we both lost our father 12 days later to pancreatic cancer. Today marks the day that he has officially spent more time with us, than he ever did with his biological parents. Let that sink in.”
‘Out of all the ugly, this child survived’: Mom meets guardian angel who saved her unborn baby during Las Vegas shooting
“He’s already part of history, and he doesn’t even know it. One day his mom is going to have a story to tell him.”
