(Trigger Warning: This story includes loss of loved ones, drug use, and profanity. Names have been changed for privacy.) Let me tell you what I know about Megan. She has an infectious smile, and the sweetest laugh. I would know, since we have cackled to the point of tears together many a late night; whether walking home from after-work drinks, or just sitting sober in my bed reading ‘texts from last night’. She is warm and welcoming. She enjoys cooking, hiking, and lives happily with her beautiful girlfriend in the Bay Area. Megan has about 300 friends. And you may think I’m exaggerating, but it’s true. She is the only person I know who literally gets stopped every single time we are out anywhere, by someone who considers her a good friend. I plan ahead to allot extra time for this. I’ve watched her interact with these friends, and it’s always so sweet and genuine. Megan has a knack for making people feel welcome around her, and they subsequently want to be her friend. And she juggles each of these friendships with care and precision. If we want to take a small girls’ trip to Palm Springs? Better extend the trip, she’s got a good friend there. Shall we stop at this restaurant? The manager is her pal, we have to account for that. Being a massive introvert, I have always found this to be fascinating and beautiful. I have a hard time keeping up with the few close friends I have. She seems to live this way with ease, with joy. And it is all a testament to who she is at her core; a wonderful person with so much love to share. She is a gem, and I feel it’s a bit self-serving to admit that she is one of my best friends. But what lies underneath? How did Megan become the social butterfly she is today? That is what I aimed to answer in an interview with her. And while we’ve had hundreds, if not thousands of calls during our friendship, I knew this one would be different. And I felt jittery knowing she was fully onboard. Because that’s who Megan is. She shows up for her friends, (all 300 of them), and when I ask for help, she is instantly all in. Megan had lived many lives before the vast majority of us could read or write. And she endured experiences most can’t imagine, before she aged into double digits. The following story is not for the faint of heart, but it is such an important one. I nervously balanced my phone, setting it to record as I heard the familiar FaceTime ping on my computer. Megan’s face popped up with her usual grin, inspiring me to smile back. I wonder why I feel nervous. I’ve known her since fourth grade, I remind myself. After some regular chit chat, we both sit up a little straighter. I ask her if she’s ready, and if she consents to me recording. Yep, yep. “I want to talk about being a former foster youth,” she says firmly. Megan came ready to go. That’s my girl. So I just nod, glance down at my phone to triple check its recording, and start scribbling notes. Megan was born to parents who were never married, and not together romantically since she was about 3. She recalls in the beginning how it was seemingly normal; she was with birth Mom mid-week, Dad on weekends. She has a clear image of who her parents have always been. While her birth Mom was more intense and high strung, her dad was more level-headed. She has fond memories of her weekends with him; eating dodger dogs at the local baseball game, donuts and chocolate milk were always on the menu. But as she got older, her father began to distance himself, while her birth mom began to live an increasingly dangerous lifestyle. Megan summarizes this by simply saying ‘She started hanging around with the wrong dudes. And doing drugs.’ Meg was only two or three years old. “I can remember houses we lived in,” she told me. “But eventually we didn’t have a place to live… I was basically like a homeless kid.” As the drug addiction escalated, so did Megan’s sense of instability. She has a memory of seeing her birth Mom rolling a joint with a strange man after preschool one day. She vividly remembers the moving trucks packed full of their belongings, toted to different motel rooms around Hollywood. She feels thankful that they could even live in motels, compared to the alternative of having no roof over her head at all. And she recounts how one day, before she could begin to process what was happening or why, her birth mother left Megan at a ‘family friend’s’ house with the vague sentiment she’d be staying there a while. So little Megan walked her suitcase into a new house in Palmdale, California, not knowing when she’d see her birth mother again. Megan was five. She got used to this situation quickly enough, but regularly wondered why her Dad didn’t just take her in, after all he was more stable. She has one sole memory of him buying a bike for her and dropping it off at this new residence, but that’s about it. She ponders to me now; He had a full time job. Maybe he just didn’t know how to emotionally handle a child? As for her birth Mom, she speculates whether this sudden and under-explained ‘stay with friends’ was because she was actually in jail. She’ll never know though, because from her experience, ‘I can’t ever get the truth from her.’ I ask her what it was like to have Child Protective Services coming to her class, a very regular occurrence for her at that age. Surely other kids in her class weren’t experiencing this? Did she have any sense of discomfort, or feel it was odd she was the only one? “Honestly, I don’t remember thinking it was weird,” she says, gazing off to think. “I had been through so much shit by then, this was just another thing.” I need to reiterate: Megan is now speaking about her six year old self. A kindergartener. I think of my son who is that age; how he still mispronounces words and calls me “mommy”. He is so young, and so was she. While most kids were worried about which playground amenity they’d visit first at recess, Megan was regularly pulled aside to have conversations with strangers holding clipboards, asking personal questions about her home life. As she learned later, they were there to rule out abuse. My son’s face flashes into my brain, and I shudder at the thought. Megan’s birth mom showed up again after six months. She recalls this vividly, because the family turned her away. Meg still doesn’t know exactly why, though she has her suspicions. Namely, she thinks at this stage her birth mother was far too deep into a years-long meth addiction for any decent human to willingly send a child with her. And additionally, much later in life Megan learned that during one of her birth Mom’s stints in jail, she was required by law to take parenting classes. And to this day, Megan has yet to receive an explanation as to why those classes were never completed. “She wasn’t allowed to have me back because she never finished the classes she was supposed to take in jail,” Megan tells me. She cites this as an underlying cause for one of her biggest pet-peeves; as she puts it, ‘I get pissed when people can’t get their shit together’. After a while of CPS visits by day and couch crashing by night, she left the family friends and was placed into her first foster home. She jokingly tells me ‘I don’t know who thought this was a good idea, but she was 76 years old.” The woman was nice enough and had her adult children around (in their 40’s, she estimates) to help care for Megan. Makes me think this situation could have panned out so differently had it not been for what came next. In the span of a year, she watched her home and foster family literally crumble. By a stroke of poor fate, her new house was located at the epicenter of one of Southern California’s worst and most damaging earthquakes. (Northridge, 1994, for those who didn’t live it.) She recalls the violent shaking, seeing the actual walls of her house falling apart around her. She was terrified. And she vividly recalls slugging mattresses and futons outside to sleep in the backyard, for fear they were no longer safe indoors. Shortly after, things took an even sadder turn when her elderly foster mom passed away. And at seven years old, Megan was once again re-located. Her second foster home would be back in Palmdale. Megan’s face changed when she talked about this new home. She describes a loving family, getting to experience life with siblings. It was in her eyes, normal. But when it came time for their daughter to go to college, the foster family broke the news to her that they would all be moving out of state… without Megan. And at the age of nine, Meg wound up in her third foster home, and with the woman who would finally adopt her. This is an important note: I’ve referred to the woman who birthed Megan as her “birth Mom” in this story thus far, because that is how she has always spoken about her. Megan’s “Mom”, has always been the woman who adopted her; a woman named Jane. Megan didn’t take to Jane right away. In fact, she retracts a bit at this part. She feels embarrassed by this stage of her life. She refers to herself as ‘a little shit’ at that age. She admits to being aggressive, angry, and at times violent and bullying other kids. This is the part of the story where young me and young Megan met. We went to the same elementary school. It was an affluent beach town with top schools and safe neighborhoods. But the truth is neither of us truly recognized that, or the importance it played in our lives until we were older. At that time, we were acquaintances who played AYSO soccer together. I remember her being a bit rough around the edges, but I had no idea what she had been through to get to that point. We were nine. I had only ever known one home. By then, Megan had known more homes than I can count. It took two years for the adoption to be finalized, and Megan tells me she was a troubled child that entire time. Despite the knowledge that Jane would adopt her, she still felt resentful. She got in trouble, she admits she was mean to Jane. Deep down, she wished she could still be with her previous family, the one who gave her that desperately craved sense of normalcy. Jane was single, no other children. She lived alone in a big house near the beach. Megan didn’t care about any of that, she was just angry. I watch her try to over-explain her childhood behavior, and when she’s done, I remind her that anger is more than expected from what she went through. She had been on a spinning wheel basically since birth, and now that it had finally stopped her child self was undoubtedly dizzy from it. She would’ve actually had to sit still long enough to feel everything, with no coping skills in sight. She couldn’t possibly have seen then that compared to the statistics, she was one of the lucky few to be adopted at that age. And how could she? She had been through hell. And she was a child. I feel myself getting protective and emotional at this point, because I won’t let any negative self-talk fly in our friendship, but I dial it back in so she can continue. She goes on to tell me how at the age of 11 she was formally adopted, thus dubbing Jane with the title of “Mom”. They continued to find their footing in this new life together. Her Mom was strict, and Megan was rebellious. They tested one another in ways they had never been before. And in time, they polished things down to a routine, then to stability, and then to their own little family of two. It was in High School that Megan finally began to feel appreciative of what she’d received from her Mom. She had long pushed her birth parents out of mind. And it’s not like they’d made any attempt to reconcile with her either. Megan got into sports and music. She found herself a group of friends. And that’s when things started to blossom for her. It was surprising to me to hear that there was a time when Megan wasn’t a social queen. She says it wasn’t until Senior Year of high school that she began to find her footing in a social sense. Until then, she had friends here and there, but she was much more recluse back then. In a twist, she credits her birth mom for getting her out of her shell despite not having spoken to her for years at that point. Her birth mom was very social, and Megan observed this side of her when she’d accompany her out as a child. ‘She would take me to poker games, she’d bring me around people constantly’. As Meg grew older, she recalled that sensation. She saw the power in building a social community. And she wanted that for herself. By the time Megan and I started hanging out on a regular (i.e. daily) basis, we were in our early college years. Megan had an expansive friend group by then, though it would grow even larger in the coming decade. She was already having run-ins with people around town who loved her, and this is when we began a deep friendship resulting in those late-night cackling sessions. As a legal adult, her birth parents made few attempts to find her. Her birth mom continues to reappear in vague and destructive ways. Most notably, a couple of years ago she tried to steal Megan’s identity (a story that could fill another 8 pages on its own). After going through the process of recovering from this both emotionally and legally, Megan wisely cut contact for her own mental health. As for her Dad, he has showed up exactly one time to visit her new life in the Bay Area. Megan recalls being about 24 at that time, and spending a short afternoon of a promised long weekend together. But the next day, he never showed to pick her up for their plans. And though she waited for him, she knew in her heart he wasn’t coming. She hasn’t seen or spoken to him since. This is another part of the story where my protective friend-side wants to jump out and scream with her, but we will save that for another day. Megan has made peace with it all in her own time, and has no plans to have a relationship with either of her birth parents. I would bet most people don’t know these things about Megan, I admittedly knew a lot less than I thought. I bring this up to her at this point, apologizing for being less of a friend than I should have. I wish I had known so much more of what’s in these stories. She admits that she kept it buried inside most of the time. She didn’t want to acknowledge that those stories were an integral part of who she is; but she knows that now more than ever. Megan lost her Mom in 2020 to a long battle with cancer. I remember the text, she asked not to be called while she processed, and I respected it. But I knew how deeply she was hurting. Jane had been her family, the only true parent she’d ever had. I could see her putting up her walls again, she began to toughen up. After all, that’s what she had to do her whole life. She couldn’t cry, she didn’t have time before the next thing rolled around. But this time would be different. She would have to face herself as an adult; she would have to go inward in a new way. Megan began to experience years of trauma, fear of abandonment, and desperation for a sense of normalcy, culminating into anxiety and panic attacks. She lived that way for a while until she couldn’t, and she got help. And even at her lowest, she held herself up. She fought back. She began to see therapist, and she turned to her (huge) group of friends for support. And they were ready. Seeing (and being a part of) this support, it dawned on me that in her adulthood, Megan had created a different kind of family. She spent years of her life bonding with people in ways that continue to amaze me. She has family of her choosing; one she crafted carefully and with intention. She turned friends into family. And I believe that this is entirely due to the life she experienced before she was even a pre-teen. She could have given up on the world, many of us would have. She could have understandably tossed her hands up in retreat and given a middle finger to the heavens. Life was unkind to child Megan, to put it very mildly. But she persevered, and she grew, and she never gave up until she began to succeed, and then thrive. Surrounded by an army of people who would come to her aid in a second, I see now what she did. She created something that she was never given. She built a community herself. After the walls meant to support her literally crumbled around her, she built them back up inside herself, in her own way. She fought past the anger and resentment, and found pieces of love and joy in the rubble. Brick by brick, Megan created the life she always wanted. Today, Megan is studying psychology. Can you guess her current field of work? She mentors foster youths. If that isn’t a hot damn beautiful full circle moment, I don’t know what is. “Did you know that only 3 or 4 % of foster youth graduate college?” Megan had asked me at the beginning of our conversation. I didn’t know. This statistic is what gave her a sense of curiosity, and pride. It’s what ignited the fire inside her to find a new place in the system that raised her, this time coming back in from the opposite end. She realized she was an outlier; the entirety of the foster care system has morbidly high rates of failure. And she wanted to do something about it, so she did. Weekdays, you can find her giving foster kids academic, social, and emotional mentoring, “so they can go to college, and succeed.” These days Megan feels proud of what she went through. She is not just willing to talk about her childhood, she wants to. She sees the immense value in who she has always been. She still wonders what life would have been like if things had been, as she puts it, ‘normal.’ But she knows she couldn’t be where she is today: Living with her soulmate (who adores her), pursuing her dream career, with a family of hundreds. “All of these things have made me feel good, and made me realize how amazing I am,” she says with a smile. “Hell yeah you are,” I say back. And it’s the truest thing I’ve said today. .

This idea came to me as I was reading a book, simultaneously texting a friend about our respective Saturdays. Perhaps multi-tasking is my strong suit, or alternatively I am simply addicted to my phone. In fact it was the latter realization that made me abruptly delete my social media apps this morning. I go through the various cycles of a tenuous relationship with it: That toggle between I have seen so many tutorials! I can strip furniture now! I can do fab hairstyles! (vs.) I should not know what a random acquaintance from high school ate for lunch today, please turn this sh** off. Does this sound familiar? Am I alone in this? Somehow, I doubt it. (And seems important to note here that this is probably the tenth time I have embarked on the hate phase of the love/hate cycle. Let’s see how long it lasts this time!) But sitting with this realization deeper, all while texting my good friend/reading a book, it dawned on me that one of the components of social media that compels me is the aspect of connection. And that very same thing about social media turns me off. Because I don’t feel actually connected to people on social media. I don’t even feel connected to my friend’s Instagram account, who I am currently texting. I know her so deeply, so well. She has so many layers to her, all of which I adore. Her page, while full of beautiful images, isn’t a deep depiction of who she is. Mine sure isn’t, and I’d bet in all honestly, yours isn’t either. So I got an idea – and without a second’s pause texted my friend; “I need your help with an idea… I am working on just writing, stories, ideas, etc. And I think one of the things that inspires me are stories of the women in my life. I’m considering interviewing women I know and making a list of short stories. Can I start with you?” And without hesitation her reply was; “Hell ya.” We all have stories to tell, and those stories can create endless inspiration, and connection. I think many of us exist without the belief that our own stories matter just as much as anyone else's. But they do, we all matter. We all have something we've overcome, and that something is worth sharing. Because what if your story is exactly what someone needs to feel less alone? Or what if your story can teach them something they needed to learn? Our stories are what makes us unique, while simultaneously connecting us on a deep level. I want to share her story. I want to share yours. And maybe, just maybe, we can all become better for it. So this idea begins now.

Trigger Warning: Death in relation to COVID 19. Please read with discretion. I’m shaking. It’s cold. It’s night now. The moon is shining on our restless bodies. We pace, we shift our stances. We take nervous steps, but we can’t go too far. The clock after all, is ticking at an unknown speed. My sister hands me a coat to wear, I didn’t know we’d be standing out here. I look down at my feet, only now remembering it was my running shoes I chose to throw on hastily as I ran out the door. They’re covered in wood chips and dirt now. I hadn’t noticed. We aren’t supposed to be here. I’m sure this isn’t allowed. None of this is right. But we aren’t going anywhere. I remind myself to be thankful that you live on the first floor, otherwise we couldn’t be here at all, standing on these bushes outside of your room. I feel thankful for this window I’m looking through that gives me a full view of you. Its screen propped open allows me to better hear the sounds from inside. This window isn’t much, but it’s all we’ve got right now. From this distance, about six feet away, I can see your face, as your body lies still under the covers. Your eyes are unblinking, they stare off into the distance. Your chest moves softly with each labored breath, the sound of which is faint, but still audible from this distance. I watch my mother pace around your bed, I can feel her panic from here. Frantically trying to call her sisters, so that you can also hear from your other two daughters, one last time. She finally rips her phone out of the plastic bag she was instructed to use. This call is too important. I see the alarm in her face, her shaking fingers as she dials. Her eyes dart repeatedly towards the window where we stand, desperately seeking an answer from us that we have no power to give. We don’t understand this either. We aren’t going anywhere, we are here until the end, I think, hoping she knows that. Moments earlier, it was I who stood by your side. But before I could enter your room, I was given all of the gear needed to protect me from the virus that now consumes you. As I intentionally secured each piece onto their respective places on my body, another part of me wanted to scream, to run out the door. This isn’t right, how can this be happening? But knowing moments were fleeting, I quietly secured the mask over my nose, suddenly less able to breathe. I fit the face shield over my forehead, it must be too tight, I thought. I realized I had nothing to reference, I had never worn PPE before. Walking into your room, I watched my sister stand up as I entered. She looked so foreign underneath all the protective gear. I gave her forearm a gentle squeeze as she passed me, and heard the door close behind her. At your side, I brushed your hair gently, hoping you didn’t notice that it wasn’t my fingertips that touched you, but latex gloves. I told you that I was there with you, that you weren’t alone. I told you as gently as I could, to please not be afraid. That my grandpa, your husband, who loved you more than anything, is waiting to hug you. I told you that you are safe, you are not alone. I pleaded with you to wait for your daughter to get here, she was so close. None of us knew how bad this was, she was speeding here as fast as she could. I desperately wanted to find the right words to speak to you, but what are they really? Does anyone actually know? And with that realization, I did the first thing that came to mind; I began to recount memories. I told you that living with you when I was in college was so much fun, that I loved how you and Grandpa took care of me, how you made the most incredible home-cooked food for every meal. The floodgates of memories continued to open, and I was suddenly a child again, looking up at you. We walked through the mall, you flashed me a smile, blinking both eyes at me, sweetly. That was always my favorite of your expressions. You smiled joyfully, gesturing to the girl’s clothing section, telling me to pick out one thing I wanted. I was so excited; I think you were too. Later as we drove home, I clutched my new sweater, observing it’s beauty, when I realized we were in a drive-through line. You ordered ten burgers. Intrigued, I asked why, but you wouldn’t tell me. Then within minutes, we pulled up to a seemingly random street curb. Next to us was a group of homeless men and women. You rolled down the window, waving them over. Afraid, I looked at your eyes, and you looked back into mine. “They’re hungry, let’s feed them,” you told me. “Give them each a burger.” And so, I did. They each approached the car one-by-one, thanking us with a smile. As soon as we were done, with your eyes on the road, we simply drove home. I was full of feelings I had never felt before. You on the other hand, had clearly done this many times. We never spoke much of that day, but I had learned all that I needed to. You simply saw a need in others, and did something to fix it. You weren’t afraid, nor concerned about appearance. All you wanted was to feed someone hungry. And as those who love you know, your love language was undoubtedly through giving food. Hearing a faint sound from the hallway, I was brought back to the room beside you. Squinting through the acrylic face shield fogged from my breath, I observed you lying in your bed. I tried to find the words to tell you how much you mean to me, but they were stuck somewhere in my chest. It just couldn’t come out right. And I just cried, feeling the pressure of the mask cupping my nose. And before I knew it, the door flew open, my mother walked in, and I was asked to leave. Only one of us could be by your side, and it undoubtedly needed to be her. After peeling PPE off my body and exiting the lobby, I stood outside the building shaking, unsure what to do. I spotted my sister in the distance, waving me over. I followed her around the side of the building, through the bush es, to the window where I stand now, watching you breathe. All of your 3 daughters are with you now, two of them on the phone, and my mother by your side. The care nurse stands at the back of the room, timing your breaths with her watch. Your daughters tell you through the speaker that they love you so much. They’re thanking you for all that you’ve done for them. They cry. They tell you to not be afraid, that you are safe. They are so sorry they can’t be here, I can hear the suffering in their voices. Realizing they’re speaking Spanish to you, I look to my sister at my side, she’s quiet, her eyes are locked ahead. It dawns on me that she may not understand, and without thinking I quietly begin to translate. I don’t know if that’s what she wants. I hope it’s okay. I hear my cousin’s voice on the phone now, he’s speaking to you, telling you he loves you too. I hope you can hear the words we’ve all been saying, I hope you can feel it despite how unmoving you appear. I hope you aren’t afraid. I hope desperately that you understand why we can’t all be right beside you, giving you comforting touches. My mother brushes your hair gently through her glove, reiterating the loving words that are being spoken through the phone. You aren’t alone, Grandma. Can you feel it? Do you know your daughters are here with you? You must, because suddenly a tear falls from your eyes. Your daughters’ voices did it. They gave you the enormous strength it took to show us a sign that you can hear us. The love of a mother is powerful beyond words. I feel tears on my cheeks again, because I suddenly think of my own young children at home, who are undoubtedly playing happily, unaware of what is happening to their Great-Grandma. My young sons had become regulars at the care home, entertaining a crowd of residents with toddler speeches. They learned how to push your wheelchair and comb your hair. I feel a lump in my throat as I realize my seven-month-old daughter will never get to meet you. She was born in the midst of the pandemic, when your care home was locked down. We were waiting patiently for you to meet her, to hold her, for you to see her round cheeks smiling up at you. We thought that time would come soon. I’m suddenly full of anger at what is happening. At the world. At this virus. This isn’t right. This can’t be it. My sister and I hug between sobs because your breathing slows, and then stops. The nurse rushes over to find a heartbeat, and she can’t. She pronounces the time of death. You won’t be in pain ever again. I watched my mother hunch over in sadness, the realization coming onto her like waves. What do we do now? She asks the nurse through tears. Cry, the nurse replies. And we do, all of us; my mother next to your bed, my sister and I in the moonlight. We sob. We hug. I look at my sister’s tearful eyes, then to my mother’s through the glass, unsure of how a person should grasp what had just happened. I look at the window in front of me again. I’m thankful for it. And also, I hate it. I hate that this barrier kept me from being by your side. I hate that I can’t soothe my mother’s whimpers or pain through glass. I hate that you look so alone laying there, even though we are just feet apart. I hate that you had to go this way, that I had to watch it happen through this godforsaken window. I realize it is okay to be grateful for something, and also hate it. This window let me see you. The virus kept me apart from you. I’ll choose now to close my eyes and see your famous blink. I’ll choose to see your smile and warm face as you open the door to your home, beckoning us inside. I can smell the familiar scent of your cooking in the air. I hear your sweet voice encouraging us to eat more of your food, despite knowing how full we were. I’ll choose to remember your best moments, some of my favorite life memories by your side. And I promise, Grandma Lor, to tell my kids the stories about you that bring me most joy. I promise that when I feed home-cooked meals to my own children, and someday (hopefully) grandchildren, I'll think of you. And I’ll do my best to give them the same safe, loving feeling you always gave to me in those moments. I’ll teach them what it means to give to others in need, in your name. You will live on through us all. I’ll miss you. -Your Granddaughter

This one's about me. Written in July 2015. And Trigger Warning: This post discusses pregnancy loss, and includes profanity. That morning, I remember my feet feeling cold. In a rush to leave the house, I hadn’t thought to wear shoes. I hadn’t thought of much at all, really. I slipped on my sandals out of habit, in an unfamiliar daze. At that point, I was blissfully unaware that we’d be in the hospital that long. As I ran out the door, I had no idea what was coming: How walking into those huge doors would be like crossing a threshold into a parallel life I had never imagined for myself. I couldn't foresee how quickly the nurses faces would twist into panic at the check-in counter. I didn't know I would abruptly be sat into a wheelchair, rushing through the buzzing ER, cutting the line of distressed patients who had undoubtedly been waiting for hours. I couldn't have imagined what it would be like, receiving unwanted stares from other patients and staff who overheard our news. I didn’t know I’d soon be bleeding in the ER bathroom, too embarrassed to walk out because I had stained my gown. When I put on my flip flops that morning, I didn’t know I had lost my baby. I didn’t know how cold my feet would feel. I should have worn shoes. I laid there in the hospital bed watching my husband. He sat in silence, unmoving. He had pushed his chair across the room to be as close to me as possible, and buried his face into his hands. I wondered if the chair was more or less comfortable than the bed. I wondered if he was okay. I wondered if he knew that I wasn’t. As my fingers glided gently through his hair, I silently prayed to anyone who would listen. I begged the higher powers to save my baby. I bartered with whatever I could think to give. I promised I’d be the best mother, I promised I’d take my vitamins everyday, that I’d never let a moment of ingratitude exist in my entire life. I would have given up my own soul, if anyone had walked in at that moment and made an offer to exchange it for what was coming. But in hindsight, I was pleading to rewrite a story that had already concluded. And I knew it the moment the Doctor walked in the room, staring at the open file in his hands. As he took a breath, his eyes darted, making contact with seemingly everything in the room except me. And even though I knew almost exactly what he would say, every single word hit me like its own singular blow. I was suddenly thrust into a fight with my arms pinned behind my back, competing against my biggest fear. He continued, over-explaining what happened, and with each word I was beaten further down to my core. He finally made eye contact to tell me he was so sorry, that it wasn’t my fault. This just happens sometimes, they don’t know why. He said there was nothing I could’ve done differently. He said that sometimes, babies just don’t make it. He continued to explain what would happen next, and it dawned on me after hearing “prescribing pain medicine” and “the worst is yet to come”, that I was nodding along to his words, out of purely habitual politeness. What was wrong with me? This man was the referee in this fight I never asked to be in. I was the broken one. I owed him no gestures. Fuck that. Fuck politeness. And then that realization, like a bizarre magic trick, caused a brand new experience to explode out of me. The self-defensive wall I had spent years building inside myself, the one that protected me from crying in front of strangers, the one that instilled in me to nod like a good girl so others could read my listener cues - it all disintegrated. And the flood waiting behind it burst through like a tidal wave. And so I sat there in the cold, lifeless room, and balled. I cried so hard my ribs became sore. I felt the air leave my lungs, feeling unassured it would return. And the tears would only stop after what felt like hours, when the energy in my body depleted so low, that I couldn’t bare to push another out. My husband sat there in his chair so close to me, feeling utterly helpless trying to figure out how to touch me, how to hold me. The bed that divided us was an impossible obstacle. And so he tried to hold my hands, he tried to tell me it was okay. I wanted to be alone. I wanted him to hold me tightly. I wanted to scream, I wanted to be in silence. But we could only sit there, side by side. As we held each other’s gaze, we saw one another break in a way we had never imagined. We could only cry, and break, and repeat. We watched each others faces become swollen, our eyes turn red. And when my bleeding had slowed enough for me to walk again, I slipped my cold feet into my sandals and walked out of the hospital, the emptiest I had ever been in my life. In the aftermath, we were forced to numbly tell each family member and friend that the baby we had announced so joyfully to them just weeks prior, had turned into a morbid statistic. I experienced hours of labor contractions, wondering if the pain would ever stop. I took as many pain pills as I physically could handle. I received texts and calls of support from those who didn’t really know how to help. I turned my phone off. I was no longer a woman growing a person inside of me. I was meaningless. I was a failure. I was truly broken. Now, I sit in my living room, on the same couch I laid on to miscarry five years ago. But here, now, I watch my three young children fill our home with life. I watch their cheeks lift with each innocent smile. I hear their feet hit the floor as they chase each other gleefully. I see their beautiful, curious eyes absorbing the world around them. I see them bounce on the cushions beside me, blissfully unaware of what both this couch, and I, have been through. I thank every facet of the universe for bringing me three healthy babies. I forgive it for the miscarriage. I forgive it for the 4 that others that followed, and for the recovery and toll each one took on me and my body. As I hear my children's laughter bounce off the walls, I consider it my debt paid. We are even now. But most of all, I sit here in forgiveness of myself. I absolve the guilt I have carried, for blaming myself, for believing I was a failure. And while I wear the statistic on my soul like a brand, I know now that it is a very real part of my life story. It will always be with me. I will always grieve the babies that I lost. I will mourn the innocence each loss took from me. I will feel empathy for the women who have experienced the same, for those that don’t yet know they will. I give my love and sorrow to those who will not go on to birth healthy children as I did. I know now that I was never alone, despite intensely feeling that way. And I promise to help those who feel the despair of pregnancy loss, to know that they were never alone either. And I now allow myself to feel gratitude for that wall breaking down. So my husband and I could see ourselves and each other in the most raw human form, and then rebuild from rock bottom, together. Should anyone ever read this; I hope this lets you know that you are not alone, you never were. And I love you.

I have made a decision. I will no longer assume the role of “passive, helpless, spectator” to my own life. I have remained here for some time now, in a position of static observation, largely unmoving. It is almost as though I have subconsciously been assembling layers of eggshells, upon which I perched myself. But why? Was it so I could have something to gesture to whenever I need a reason for my apathy? The longer I’ve stayed here, atop my bed of eggshells, I have become more and more comfortable. I learned how to accommodate their restrictions, the warnings they gave: ‘don’t do that’, ‘don’t move’, ‘just stay still’, ‘remain helpless’, ‘it’s safe here’. But, is it safe here? As days, weeks, months go by, and I walk through life with perpetual trepidation, waiting to be rescued from my own choices… I sense that my body, mind, and soul yearn for more. My anxiety disorder built what it thought was a protective shield against the ever-present ‘scary’ dangers; but in place of a life fully lived, I’ve become more like the very shells I’ve learned to live upon. One year. I’m giving myself one year to become a writer. And that means I will have to work at it every day, whether in a larger sense, or in the small windows of in-between mom life. I am shifting myself off this mountain of tentativeness. As much as I’d love to take a sledgehammer to it all at once, I know in my heart it’s not realistic. My anxious brain slaved over this creation piece by piece for years, thinking it was safeguarding me. And maybe that’s what I needed to survive until now. But it is no longer serving me, and it needs to go. So thank you, my protective brain, for getting us through the hardest times this way. I see why you thought it was necessary. It was as though you created a cocoon for us, so that we could hide, grieve, transform, and grow without being consumed by deeper traumas. And it took me this long to truly see that, perhaps by design. And now, I feel ready to take back control. I feel like I can reassume the driver’s position, if only in a transitional way for now. I am ready to make changes, to truly be in my own body and mind. I’m ready to finally bet on myself, and put in the work required to do so. I’m ready to pursue the dream I’ve had since I first learned to scribble words on paper. The deep rooted yearning I have felt since I picked up my first book as a young, curious child. I want to be a writer. One year. Mark these words. I hope one-year-from-now Sondra will be smiling reading this. This is for future me. This is for Scott, who is my anchor in life. This is for my kids, who deserve a mom who is her authentic self, who fights for who she knows she is meant to be. And it is for me, right now, sitting here, knowing I am worth this. One year. Let’s do this.