weak

‘After watching the Disney movie, our 8-year-old daughter couldn’t sleep. My heart ached for her.’: Parents encourage daughter’s empathy, ‘We will not toughen her up’

“At 2 a.m. this morning, as my daughter snuggled into me, I told her stories about bunnies, fields of flowers… Nothing worked. We are protective about what our tender-hearted children see. We are cautious. When I was 9, I watched a movie that traumatized me around the same age. We will not toughen her up.”

Edited By LJ Herman

‘He opened his eyes, and held my hand. ‘I love you too, but this is ridiculous.’ He proceeded to remove his oxygen mask. It was such a Dan thing to do, to choose his time.’: Woman loses her husband to cancer

“‘How did you meet Becca?’ I was sitting with my nose in a book when he plopped himself down. ‘Hi, my name is Dan,’ he said, matter-of-factly. I will never forget that night. Little did I know – he’d become my future husband. He passed away just 16 days after we said ‘I do.'”

Edited By Eliza Murphy

‘Then I received this email. ‘Hi there, My dad has been fighting cancer. Dad is getting weaker by the day. We have to do this as soon as possible.’

“I couldn’t keep it together to talk on the phone. This is a very difficult and dark time, but I know how you feel about love. We are throwing this plan together really fast. We don’t know how long we have.”

Edited By Eliza Murphy

‘I am the Jewish nurse. The one people are talking about in the Pittsburgh shooting that left 11 dead. The nurse that cared for Robert Bowers who yelled, ‘Death to all Jews,’ as he was wheeled into the hospital.’

“I’m sure he had no idea I was Jewish. I wanted him to feel compassion. I chose to show him empathy. I felt the best way to honor his victims was for a Jew to prove him wrong. Love. That’s why I did it.”

Edited By LJ Herman

‘I’ve heard the comments from other women telling girls and young women to ‘never depend on a man’. Well, then call me weak because I depend on this man right here.’: Woman says, ‘You ARE allowed to depend on your huband’

“As if somehow depending on a man is weak or makes you less of a woman…”

Edited By LJ Herman

‘As I held you for the very last time before you passed away, you glanced at me with a tranquil stare. You smiled ever so softly.’

“Your curious eyes opened wide and never wanted to close. Your eyes darted between nurses and back to your family, not wanting to miss the world around you.”

Edited By Eliza Murphy

‘Dear Anxiety, you have been in and out of my life since I became a mother, and this season, the one I am in right now, is one of the hardest.’

“You used the fear of trying to parent my newborn babies alone to destroy every particle of confidence in my being. I remember calling my sister sobbing because I was so overwhelmed with three crying babies that all needed me.”

Edited By Eliza Murphy

‘This is what depression looks like. No, not the clean dishes, but that I’ve gone 2 weeks without doing them.’

“Three days ago I sat on the kitchen floor and stared at them while I cried. I knew they needed to be done. I wanted to do them so bad.”

Edited By LJ Herman

‘Cancer cannot cripple love’: With wedding ‘years down the road’ teen tries on wedding dresses for sick mother in hospital to ‘share this moment together’

“Mom and I held each other while tears streamed down our cheeks as we talked about how we could never imagine living without one another. We began talking about things we still wanted to do together.”

Edited By Eliza Murphy