“All around you right now are mamas who are terrified to send their kids to school this year. Their hearts break every time their amazing kid comes home with no stories of lunchtime conversations or playground games. My girls no longer have the luxury of living in a perfect, bubble-wrapped world. I, for one, know they are better for it.”
‘I walked past my girls playing Barbies. They were pretending a girl on the playground had a wheelchair.’: Mom proud of daughters for advocating for baby sister who was diagnosed with Prader-Willi Syndrome at 2 weeks old
‘As my daughter was giggling, bursting with love in the next room, I was learning she wouldn’t be growing up at all.’ Mom’s 18-month-old daughter diagnosed with ‘Childhood Alzheimer’s’
“The phone rang. I grabbed a notepad, a pen, took a deep breath. How do you prepare yourself to answer a call with the results of whether your 18-month-old daughter is going to die? My mind shut off. All the air left the room. ‘Very serious, no cure yet, not sure, lots of research.'”
‘We were heading home by scooter when we slipped. A simple SLIP changed my life. I felt a piercing pain in my back. I looked down at my legs. They looked like someone else’s.’ Paralyzed woman carried across the world on ‘husband’s back’
“Ambulance, sirens, lights. I realized something big had changed, though it wasn’t yet clear what it was. From my hospital bed, I lied and reassured my parents I could feel their caresses, hands. I couldn’t. And I never walked again. Many find strength in sport. I did not. I found it in my husband.”
‘If I’d arrived 15 minutes later, I’d have been dead. I woke in hospital after almost drinking myself to death on an empty stomach, in reaction to my relationship ending.’: Woman thrives after no longer allowing eating disorder to ‘take away my voice’
“The look on my parents’ faces when I asked them what had happened and why I was there, broke my heart. I never thought I’d be one of those anorexics or bulimics who ‘took it too far.’ I started seeing glimpses of what it was like to feel happy without feeling hollow.”
‘I got a message from a stranger offering condolences for my fiancé. My heart raced. I had NO IDEA what was going on.’: Deputy paralyzed in shooting, girlfriend embraces his ‘new normal’ with open arms
“I knew I needed to be wherever he was. I raced upstairs, put on clothes. After several unanswered phone calls, Jamie’s sergeant picked up. ‘He’s been shot in the back.’ He was paralyzed from the sternum down. The news didn’t hit until I had to relay it to my parents. I can’t make his pain go away. I can’t make his legs move again. But what I can do is love him.”
‘Momma, why can’t I walk like my friends?’ His legs were sticking straight up in the air, unable to bend. A lady in Walmart was staring long and hard.’
“His 6-year-old brother stepped in. He said, ‘What’s wrong? Haven’t you ever seen a kid in a wheelchair?’ I’ve lost count of the number of times a parent has told their children, ‘Stay away from that child!'”
‘Where is Gabriel?’ I remember screaming my boyfriend’s name ‘Gabriel!’ but no reply. My sister found me and said, ‘You are okay, they are coming to help you’ that night was the most confusing and heartbreaking of my life.’
“I saw myself laying in the grass listening to my sister screaming my name looking for me. ‘Marcela! Marcela! I remember her screaming, ‘I’m here but I cannot move!’”
‘One boy said, ‘Why is she even in here? She’s f—king crippled!’ I ignored it, but it would get worse. My mom and I got into a huge argument. She stopped, and looked at me in shock.’
“One day someone came to talk to me at lunch. I thought, ‘Finally someone wants to be my friend!’ Instead, they cut me off by saying, ‘If I was you I would kill myself because I couldn’t live like that.'”
‘Who is this,’ I asked. ‘This is Ty’s assistant principal. I just came upon a car accident on my way home. It’s Ty, and he is not good.’ Wait, what?
“I told him I would let him know when I was home from school, so he could come pick me up. Little did I know when I made that phone call, the details I heard on the other end would change our lives forever. Nothing would ever, ever be the same.”
‘I was ejected and thrown 50 feet from my car. I died that day. I knew I couldn’t feel my legs, but I didn’t know why. I was told I would never walk again.’
“I think every girl dreams of walking down the aisle to her husband. I had pictured it in my head since I was a little girl. I didn’t want that picture to play out differently just because of my accident. So I chased my dream.”
