“I wanted to save my son’s smile and innocence, since I couldn’t save him. When the end happens, I will have these memories to remind me of the wonderful times we had fighting a horrid disease. I will have those beautiful blue eyes I saw for the first time when he came into this world.”
‘We don’t know how much time he has left. ‘Jason, I cannot lose one more moment.’ My husband nodded his head. ‘I know,’ he said. These will be our last family photos.’
‘Mid-meltdown, my son sticks his rubber snake down his pants and yells, ‘LOOK! MY PENIS HAS MUTATED!’ I scream-whisper in my most ‘I mean business’ mom voice, ‘Stop it right now!’
“Breathe. Everything is fine. We are making memories, dang it! I know, I know. Parents shouldn’t raise their voice. Add me to your prayer list, I need some work. Then, I noticed a silent tear trickle down my son’s cheek.”
‘Our doorbell rang. We opened the door and stood face-to-face with two State Troopers on our front porch. Just like that, our ‘normal’ would be forever changed.’
“Both of my kids were not home. But I knew they were here about Darian. She normally texts us when she leaves practice, and we hadn’t heard from her. ‘She was in an accident,’ was the last thing I heard.”
‘Doctors told me I was ‘lying.’ I hadn’t started my period. Before I took the birth control, I took a pregnancy test. It was POSITIVE!? We bought 5 more tests. All of them were positive!’
“I was having vivid, strange dreams. A neighbor said, ‘Are you pregnant?’ I said ‘no’ and cried. A switch flipped in me. I became crazy emotional. I was having day dreams about drilling a hole in my head or cutting it off. I went to doctor after doctor. They all said that it was because of my weight.”
‘She wanted to crash a wedding, toilet paper a house and travel. I remember looking at her sitting there, thinking, ‘She will not be here much longer.’
“I will never forget the day she called me and told me. She was sorry and she didn’t understand why it was happening to her.”
‘When the trunk opened, we found a name – Patricia. They discovered it hidden in the attic. In my gut, I knew I was going to find her.’
“I could tell she was a bit hesitant. I put the trunk down on her front porch, took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. As I heard her steps as she approached, I couldn’t contain myself. She opened the door, looked down, and said, ‘I can’t believe you found it.’”
‘I stood in our doorway. After 9 years together, these are the final days of just me and Jake. With an aching I can’t shake, our lives are far from perfect.’
“Tonight, it hit me. These are the good old days. My man, this bedroom, that quilt, those dogs. Now let’s pause for a second and set the record straight.”
‘It’s the nicest thing you can do for a mom. Getting hand-me-downs. Mothers giving other mothers their kids’ clothes that don’t fit anymore.’
“Getting a bag of clothes from another mom is like she’s giving you a piece of her heart. That little dinosaur t-shirt she packs in a bag to give to you reminds her of the adventures her little one had in it. They hold memories, and they hold love.”
‘This is the first Christmas they will not be home, at least not in their home. They’ll be in their NEW home, which doesn’t feel like home to Dad, and mom know longer knows where home is.’
“As hard as he tries to be happy, all we can feel is his sadness. We will continue to take him shopping – he loves doing anything with us. Mom doesn’t know it’s almost Christmas, so will do our best to get dad through the holidays.”
‘Mommy, when will I have a sister?,’ she asked. As my eyes welled up with tears, I said, ‘I don’t know honey. You’ll have to talk to God about that.’
“Although I was pregnant with what I believed to be a baby girl, I knew I wouldn’t be for much longer. Shortly before dropping my daughter off at school that morning, my water had broken.”
