“This man stepped up and took care of this amazing little boy when his daddy was taken from this world. Connor asked if he could ask Jonathan to adopt him. ‘Why do you want to do that?,’ I asked. ‘To make it official,’ he replied. ‘I want to surprise him.’”
‘I will always have my dad in Heaven. Will you be my father forever?’ My high school sweetheart was shot and killed at a party. I was left a single mom, lost without my best friend.’
‘My husband and I decided during his deployment we would try to get pregnant as soon as he got home. I got pregnant the first try. But, I wasn’t supposed to mother this baby.’
“It was hell. My doctor removed it and sent me on my way. And then I was alone.”
‘Baby, when I hear you say you’re pregnant what I actually hear is ‘life destroyed.’ He was right. The Universe had been playing this cruel joke on me for 4 years.’
“Surprisingly, the doctor pulled me into her arms, ignoring professionalism and boundaries, and held me. She whispered in my ear, ‘I heard you talking in the change room. I know how badly you wanted this. Don’t give up yet.’”
‘Only a motherless daughter knows the deafening silence in a delivery room when her mother isn’t there for her grandchild’s first breath.’
“Only a motherless daughter knows the power behind that last ‘I love you.’ Only a motherless daughter knows the difference between ‘I miss my Mom’ because she doesn’t live here, and ‘I miss my Mom’ because she lives in Heaven.”
‘Please don’t blame yourself mom. I LOVE YOU! I’m now looking down on you. LOOK UP. I SEE YOU.’ These were the last words my son wrote the day he took his own life.’
“I received a frantic phone call. He asked me to come home immediately. He was standing in the driveway looking very frazzled. He asked me to hug him. I asked him what was wrong. ‘You know the one thing you told me never to do?’ I was confused. ‘What are you talking about Jordan, what have you done?'”
‘You wonder, ‘Do they even know my name?’ All the nurses direct their attention to mom. Not one person notices your eyes swell with tears. You, too, are broken. I see you.’
“Your child enters this world silent and fragile. You allow your child’s mom to hold your precious little one first, but your hands shake with anticipation to hold the child you both created. You stand tall next to the woman you love, while inside, you are broken.”
‘He was holding his 11-month-old daughter. Suddenly, he went stiff, making a gurgling sound. ‘Has Buddy ever had a seizure? HE JUST STOPPED BREATHING!’
“I was taking my shower when the call came in. It was my son’s fiancée’s number. It shocked me because she rarely calls me. She was panicked, ‘CALL 911!’ I ran through my home undressed screaming for his father.”
‘I discovered a bag he had given me. When I opened it, I found something I never knew was in there. I’ll never forget reading the words I didn’t know I needed to hear.’
“I never fully looked through the bag when he gave it to me. But when I went through all the items on this day, I found something – something I had once told Dad I would love to have after he was gone.”
‘When I was 13, my family and I moved into my mother’s ‘dream home.’ Just 8 months later, things would take a drastic turn.’
“It was a helpless day. We stood outside of our home knowing there was nothing we could do. At the end of the day, we had nothing but the clothes on our back.”
‘They were identical twins that spent their lives together. She cradled her sister in her arms. ‘Please Courtney, don’t leave me!’ There were no warnings.’
“I got a call from my daughter at 7 a.m. ‘Mom, is Courtney going to work today?,’ she asked. I suggested she wake her up. It haunts her every day she didn’t know her sister was in trouble.”
