“I remember thinking, ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this?'”
No One Talks About The Messy Parts Of Miscarriage
‘I awoke to my husband’s screams. ‘Wake up, Kara isn’t breathing!’ In the blink of an eye, she was gone.’: Mom loses daughter to SIDS, starts foundation in her honor
“I’d never feel those soft baby hairs, the heat of her being alive. I’d never see her smile again. The pain was so severe I thought I’d die.”
‘Relax, it’s just an empty toilet roll.’ I carry the mental load for this family. I complete the invisible, thankless tasks no one wants to do.’: Stressed mom powerfully urges ‘please think of me’
“For me, it’s not just that one task, it’s one less thing on my list, one less thing on my mind. So, the next time you pull the last piece of paper off the roll, for once, please just think of me.”
‘A crowbar came through the windshield and struck him in the head.’ When he died, a bit of me died too.’: Grieving daughter turns to cooking therapy
“I was hungry to keep his legacy alive, starving for people to recognize my loss. The casseroles stop coming before the grieving has even begun.”
‘Would the gray hair accentuate every crinkle and wrinkle on my face?’ I hesitantly stepped forward into the magic.’: Pro-aging woman shares self-love journey
“We don’t need to look like we’re in our twenties… We’ve already been there, done that! We can be sexy and carefree while stepping into our second half of life.”
‘I got pregnant on a one-night stand with a guy I barely knew. I had zero respect for my body or myself.’: Woman shares celibacy journey, ‘I’m taking my body back’
“If I wanted to sleep with a man who wasn’t my boyfriend, I did just that. Sex became another drug for me. I drank to oblivion to erase the shame.”
‘Why do I feel the need to cover this up?’ I decided this was it. I went to the hairdresser, one last time.’: Woman embraces natural grays, ‘This journey is about more than hair’
“Just because a woman has grey hair doesn’t mean they have ‘let themselves go.’”
‘Are you willing to take in two more boys?’ They were filthy, skeletal. ‘We encourage you to bathe them immediately.’: Mom shares the beauty and heartbreak of foster care
“Along the way, many people have asked, ‘Why keep doing this? It’s painful.’ They need to know they are enough. They need to know they are worthy of safety and love. For every child we have loved and lost, we would do it all over again, in a heartbeat.”
‘Who is that tall man that now towers over her? Where is her little boy? How did it go so fast? She rests her read against his broad shoulder.’: Mom urges ‘remember how it all feels’
“The tiny newborn. The sweet toddler. The adventurous boy. The challenging teenager. The confident man. The doting father. She’s loved them all. And she knows that for as long as she lives, she’ll always remember how this feels.”
‘Be more patient with him when he cries.’: Mom shares trials of co-parenting, ‘Love them enough to let go sometimes’
“I wish she understood, ‘It’s important to watch him sleep, even if it means staying up a few minutes more.’ I wish I hugged her, because the empty space she felt when he was gone would soon be regularly vacant.”