"Love You Forever"

"Love You Forever" was always and will remain the most heartbreaking read in children's literature. I could never get through it then when she was little, and let's just say that the passage of time and events haven't softened its blow.

Read to countless children by countless caregivers since 1986, including, naturally, both her mother and me, independently.  It is almost borderline cliché at this point, of course, but that's for a reason. Universal themes often become this.

I know it's supposed to be uplifting, but it was almost too melancholy even then. All life eventually ends in loss, but providing acceptance and love along the way is all we have to make the ride as bearable as possible. 

Over Crediting

 My last post was an attempt to better illustrate my relationship with Adri, but I always worry that when I do so it can come across as “Look!... Look!.... what a great father I was, look at all I did!!” and that’s never my intention. Being a parent to your child should never need accolades for, you know, being a parent to your child. This was always a sore spot with me in the past.

I’d be out in public with Adri and constantly get praise and pats on the back for doing nothing other than spending time with her and taking care of her. I assume it was because I was a (relatively) young male with a child in tow, and as such would get credit for any little thing. The bar was pretty low, evidently, for guys taking care of children. 

“Ohhh…. It’s just so great that you’re taking your daughter to the museum!,”
or 

“Awww…. Look at that!! That dad is brushing his daughter’s hair!!!,”
or

“Wow! I think it’s wonderful that you hold her purse while she plays in the park!!,“
or

“Isn’t that Just. So. Cute!!! I love how you two are out seeing a movie together!,”
or

“I think you’re an AMAZING dad playing Barbies with her!”

Etc.

I’d want to ask them, “would you fawn over me doing these things if I were a woman?,” but I didn’t because I’m not confrontational. (Openly. 😉 )

I know they meant well. I know this was probably 95% just yet another example of one of my weird personality traits where I overthink things. Still, it made me feel guilty, a sort of imposter syndrome or what have you. It also made me a bit sad for a society that thought it was a big deal that a dad would do such things with his daughter. 

Sometimes I became overly sensitive to this, worried that people thought I was “showing off” or whatever by simply being human, and part of me worries that I might have come across that way in my previous post. 

The real point of my last post was just to try to illustrate a bit how much my identity was wrapped up in me being a father to Adrianna. We all have several roles during the course of our or lives, and that one was always the most important one to me, and it was all-encompassing.

She and I

She and I

I was 24 when Adrianna was born in 1988 in Austin, Texas, and my life changed forever on that day. This, of course, is not a unique experience: all parents lives are changed forever the day they become a parent. And there are other life-changing events as well unrelated to the initial onset of parenthood such as other births, deaths, marriages, career changes, etc., but that doesn’t diminish the super nova that was Adri’s arrival in my life.

And it goes without saying that this event created seismic waves in other lives as well, a tsunami that changed the direction of many, chief among them of course her mother but also other family members and eventual friends and even her own children, but this is my story, my reflections. It is, after all, the story that I’m the most intimately familiar with, but I want everyone to understand that the Hank-centric narrative thus created takes nothing away from others. 

This loss is extremely hard for all the reasons I’ve already stated and written about, and most of that is self-evident. Anyone with children would understand, obviously those who have lost children and especially those who have lost their only child, but of course you don’t need to experience such loss to have an inkling of the profound grief that those who knew Adrianna are experiencing.  People get it and have been extremely supportive, patient, and understanding. 

But there are only a few people that I think totally comprehend the full extent of what this has done to me, because they know from first-hand experience just how important she was, how close we were and just how much my life focused and revolved around her. 

For the first 12 years the entirety of my life and the decisions and choices made all revolved around her. I didn’t start making room for someone else until I met Cindy, and eventually I began to divide my efforts, thoughts, and decisions between the two of them. 

Cindy, however, is of course self-sufficient. She is an important part of my life, occupying one side of the same coin with Adri who occupied the other. Until May of this year I was still preoccupied with trying to make sure Adri succeeded in life and she still commanded an inordinate amount of energy and thought for the entirety of her almost 37 years. This is par for the course, obviously, for one’s children, but I think this is amplified with an only child and with Adrianna’s circumstances and my personality even further.

But those first 12 years it was literally just Adri and me, from my point of view. The first almost three years I was a stay-at-home dad while her mother and I finished school. We were poor students as most students are, so we qualified for WIC, the program for low-income people whose letters stood for “Women, Infants, and Children” which tried to aid the health of this population by supplementing food such as cheese, beans and formula as well as providing nutrition education. They required you to go to monthly (or weekly? I can’t remember) meetings where they talked infant and toddler nutrition as well as breast-feeding techniques and strategies. I was always the only male there (I mean, it’s right there in the name of the program: “Women”), but that was fine by me. 

Then I’d take the vouchers they gave us and shop for the blocks of cheese and bags of dried beans and cans of powdered formula that we’d stockpile, usually with Adri in tow. We were always together.

She was born a substantial nine pounds, and was in the 95th percentile for everything including length and head circumference. Of course, that couldn’t last forever or she’d have been 7 ft tall as an adult, so when those percentages started slipping the doctor got a bit concerned with weight loss. I’d come up with high-protein good-fat meals for her that I’d make daily, the main concoction being scrambled eggs with avocado, canned Veg-All, and occasionally chicken liver added that I’d make in the microwave every lunch. She never let me forget later in life that I’d fed her chicken liver, but eventually her weight did level out.

I began to worry that she wasn’t socializing enough with other children since it was just her and I during the day at home, so I looked for something that would help that situation and found the perfect thing: a job as a substitute at a local day care chain. It was great because I could take her with me and they’d include her care as part of my employment. She got to hang with other kids and I got to bring in a whopping $3.25 an hour to boot a couple times a week. Win-win.

Eventually I took over the computer education role at the chain and would go from school to school teaching the computer classes to the pre-K kids, and both Adri and I would eventually be based out of just one of the schools so she got to be member of the two-year-old room permanently. 

When my marriage ended and her mom moved to Louisville to be closer to her parents and took Adri with her I was devastated. I had the best visitation I could get back then, the first, third, and fifth weekend, Wednesday night, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, the week after Christmas, her spring break, and six weeks in the summer, but of course once she moved out of state I really couldn’t take advantage of the weekends, Father’s Day or Wednesdays. 

I moved back to Dallas to be near my family because it was a dark time for me. It rivaled how I feel now. Adri and I had literally been together 24/7, and suddenly I never saw her and had to wait weeks or months between seeing her. 

All I did during those periods without her was think of her and save all the money I could for plane tickets and gas money to drive up there. I had to find apartments that I could afford that would also allow her own room. I’d find jobs that would afford some flexibility, eventually working at and then buying a company that taught computer skills at DFW schools and rec centers so she could be with me when I was at work. 

I’d record movies and TV shows that she’d like and then draw on the VHS box little artwork for her. Some I’d send, some I’d keep so she could watch when she was here. I’d buy day planners and plan out the entire summer and spring break, filling each day with different activities: The zoo, the arboretum, the aquarium, the science museum, go karting, arts and craft projects at home, cooking lessons, swimming outings, Saturday kids’ movie days at the local dollar cinema, Six Flags, library visits. Anything and everything. 

Trying to cram as much life into the distilled and compressed time we had together, then watching her sleep at night filled with contentment yet dreading the day she’d leave again.

For Thanksgiving, I’d drive up to Louisville, pick her up, and then drive to Chicago to spend the holiday with my grandparents. This was more cost-efficient since it was just four days, and it provided us a nice road trip which she loved. We’d talk about everything and anything. Then I’d drop her back home in Louisville and drive back to Dallas in silence full of sadness and despair that was never rivaled until recently.

She told me everything. She called me excitedly when she was not yet 12 to tell me she had her first period. She talked to me about her body issues, about boys, about her family, about squabbles with her friends, about school, and about her hopes, fears and dreams. I was so extremely lucky that my daughter felt comfortable enough with me to talk with more honesty and about more issues than I had been as a child. It made me feel good, and lessened the pain of not being with her a bit. I thought I was doing something right, the best I could in an imperfect situation.

She knew how I felt, and even though she was a little girl she was concerned with what I was missing. One time she came with a tooth she’d hidden in her pocket. She had lost it a few days prior and brought it to me telling me that “It’s not fair that you never got one of my teeth for the tooth fairy.”

 I still have it. It was the tooth fairy’s loss. 

I’d write songs for her and about her, and give her a CD filled with them. When she’d return, she’d have learned them all. Music was important to both of us. At one point she got into an argument with one of her classmates when she was about three: she insisted that her daddy had written the Barney the Dinosaur song (“I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…”) but the other kid didn’t believe her. I had to break the sad news to her.

I helped her learn to ride a two-wheeler and taught her to drive a stick shift. We took a state-approved parent-taught self-paced driving class one summer so she could get her license. We’d watch old movies at night. We’d sing our songs. 

We’d drive up to Chicago one week each summer over July 4th, the 16-hour drive again filled with wonderful conversation and music. We’d watch fireworks on the banks of Lake Geneva and I got to witness the entire evolution of her childhood reflected and encapsulated in this experience over the years: at first being too young to pay attention, then finding them “beautiful,” then being “too old” for such baby stuff before eventually once again finding them beautiful and regretting when they ended. 

Then she’d go back to Louisville and I’d start saving money for the next trip and planning what we’d do.

Adri helped me decide on a ring for Cindy, and she was with us when I proposed. I couldn’t not have her there for that moment. We planned the wedding date for a day when Adri could be there. Cindy and I stood up by ourselves, but in my head Adri was my best girl.

She called me when she went into labor with Bryce, and I immediately got in my car and started the 12-hour drive to Louisville. When I was just entering Little Rock I got the call that Bryce had been born. I arrived a few hours later to a beaming daughter who now was a proud mother. 

It was one of the top 5 days of my life.

A year later she and her family moved to Dallas to be near me, and it was another top 5 for me. She said she wanted her boy to have a positive role model and to grow up in the place that she got to spend so many great days in as a child. It touched me deeply. 

She was my only child, and maybe because of that, and because I didn’t get to see her every day and missed out on so many little things, she became what some might think too big a part of my life. Her issues also demanded a bit more care and attention, in my opinion. Perhaps I was too attached; perhaps she was too attached. 

But for better or worse she was basically my raison d'être, my entire purpose in life, all that I had done and all that I would do. My redeeming contribution to my life that I always felt otherwise fell short of my expectations and potential… but she was enough.

And now she’s gone. 

Multiverse Dreams

I dare to imagine a universe where Adri thrives

I try to take solace in the notion that in a many-worlds multiverse there exists a version of my daughter who finishes out her first semester at The University of Louisville, moving from the dorm room that she inhabits alone to one with a roommate where she doesn’t feel isolated. They become lifelong friends providing emotional support in good times and bad.

Upon graduation she fulfills her dream of being a therapist and uses some of her hard-knock life lessons to help others. She takes graduate-level courses along the way, but while doing so lives her life helping others and feeling fulfilled in both her professional and personal life.

Her heart surgery for Wolff-Parkinson White syndrome that she had when she was 16 made her acutely aware of how fragile the human body was.  She knew how important it was to live as healthy as possible and didn’t neglect either her physical or mental well-being. Though active with her career, she still saved time for herself, and even finally quit smoking via Chantix, having no worries about any purported side effects on mood.

She fell in love and was loved, eventually having the four children she wanted, two of which were Bryce and Wesley (this is an infinite world multiverse instance, remember, so every reality is possible and thus I will not forsake the boys for different reality without them.)

Her family finds a little house full of warm morning sunlight with a backyard with trees and a bird bath. She sits on the patio with her morning coffee watching her children play with their dog while a blue jay squawks its commentary from the fence post. She wonders how life could ever be better than this and she’s grateful.

She wakes up happy every morning and goes to sleep every night content, proud of her children, and her family proud of her. And she knows this.

She is active in the community and plays it forward volunteering for such things as Meals on Wheels and food banks as well as providing free counseling at clinics, playing forward all the help she’d received just as she always knew she would. She parlays her intimate knowledge of the day-to-day struggle life can be into helping others, and in so doing quiets her soul a bit and finally feels worthy of any help she’d received in the past.

As a grandmother she dotes on her grandchildren and continues the tradition of ravioli making with them at the holidays, passing on knowledge gleamed from her nonna who in turn had learned from her nonna. She writes two-page missives for each grandchild for every birthday, and they look forward to it every year. She becomes the role model of several generations.

Through it all she still talks to her mom and dad every day, sharing little moments of brightness from her life, a life not without some struggle or heartache or challenge, but a life of fulfillment and peace none the less.

I know that reality, that universe, exists, one of the many created by bifurcations caused by choices made or the occurrence of random events out of anyone’s control. I (we) are stuck in this superposition, but Adri is thriving in the other.

She’s outside on her patio drinking coffee watching the boys playing with their puppy. And she’s smiling.

Cry

More than three months out and I still find myself crying daily. I assume that’s normal and not a bad thing, but I’m not a fan. What starts it isn’t always some trigger (a song, a picture, a video, a line in a TV show or movie, an offhand comment made, etc.,) though of course it often is.

No, sometimes I just suddenly remember what the reality is, as if I’d somehow forgotten for a bit what had happened. These sudden reminders are not asked for and come out of the blue, and when they do there are tears.

Again, all perfectly normal, I assume. 

The sadness is brought about by a myriad of things or reasons, and if I’m somehow able to wrap my head around one of them, another rears its ugly head like a mutli-headed hydra (is there any other kind? Must research). Here are the reasons, the ideas, the realities that cause me such despair that the tears flow (“…. the Policeman Said.” H/T Philip K. Dick) in no particular order:

1. I cry because I miss her so
2. I cry when I think of what the boys are going through.
3. I cry imagining what the boys went through that morning.
4. I cry for the hardships my daughter had to face daily.
5. I cry because at times I think I failed my ONE JOB as a parent, to take care of my child and make sure she was safe and healthy and okay.
6. I cry because I see a future emptier without her and am afraid to face it.
7. I cry because I’m 13 years older than Cindy and fear that now there will be no one to take care of her when she’s older. Adri had promised me she’d look out for her for me.
8. I cry when I realize we’ll never be able to do X for her or take her to see Y or give her Z
9. I cry thinking about how she’ll never see her boys grow up to be adults.
10. I cry for her mother. I cry for Stephen. I cry for her grandparents. I cry for her friends.
11. I cry for myself.
12. I cry imagining what she went through that morning, hoping that it was painless, hoping that she didn’t feel alone, hoping that she saw some peace, but not knowing and crying some more.
13. I cry when I think of how Kathy and Elaine and Alicia and countless others felt and still feel.
14. I cry for time lost with her these last five years.
15. I cry for the future memories promised that will never be made.

I know this all has to come out to survive and go on, but if this was a reality show I’d vote these feelings off the island in a heartbeat. They are the weakest link. They weren’t posed in the from of a question, and they have been eliminated from the Amazing Race.

If only. 

Disney World 1998

 

On the bus to the Magic Kingdom

My grandparents gave us this trip: the airline tickets, park passes, hotel room. It was wonderful and I was so glad we got to do this together.

I still have a disposable camera full of pictures she took that I never got developed (it was misplaced for years). I'm anxious to see the photos.

Cindy and I always wanted to send her and her little family there when the boys were about the age she was here (10), but it never happened.

It was a great trip; I wish she could have experienced her boys' experiencing it.

Ambigram Bracelet

 

Adri / Love ambigram bracelet from Cindy

Cindy got me a bracelet with the Adri / Love ambigram that I designed engraved on it, the same one that Adri had tattooed on her wrist. It's solid and substantial. ♥️

The Clock

 

For some reason, the pendulum stops swining

After working fine for several years, during these last three months this clock just stops working a couple of times each week.

The pendulum just stops and thus the hands stop moving, even though it's leveled and wound fully, and I have to reset the time and restart the pendulum.

For years this didn't work at all, and I had the hands set to the time that my grandfather died since this was his clock as a sort of homage. Then a few years ago I got it fixed at a local clock shop and it's worked flawlessly.

Until now.

I'll restart the pendulum, time progresses and the hands move to the rhythmic, comforting ticking of the clockworks for a day or two, and then I'll look up and notice it has stopped and gone silent.

And I know intellectually it can't be related to the new reality without my daughter that these last three months have brought, but the intensified search for meaning and purpose for all that has happened is occasionally causing me to project causality and intention where it of course doesn't exist.

Still, it’s disconcerting.

February 2024

Adri snaps a photo of us.

I never talked about Adri’s hospitalization last year here, mainly because I was terrified and too busy in the moment when it was happening, and after there didn’t seem to be a point. But I’m going to talk about it now, as it was a preamble of what was to come, a warning sign that wasn’t ignored but yet wasn’t enough, either.

February of 2024 while helping Wesley with his homework at the dining table after dinner, Adri fell out of the chair, unconscious onto the floor. Wesley at first tried to wake her up, but then quickly found his dad in the other room and they called 911.

When I was talking on the phone with them that night the EMT paramedics were still working on her with CPR and defrib equipment to revive and stabilize her. They’d been at it for over 10 minutes with no luck. I didn’t want to be “in the way” so I got off the phone and waited, for what was the second time in the history of my daughter, for a return phone call that would either tell me that she had survived or that she hadn’t. This is as bad as you can imagine, the wait for the phone to ring that will potentially bring life-changing information for everyone.

Stephen called back about 10 minutes later. They had revived her after 20 minutes of working. She wasn’t out of the woods, though, and they transported her to the ER at the hospital. I got in my car and drove there as soon as I hung up.

It was now around 9pm or so, and the boys and Stephen were exhausted and there was really nothing to be done but wait in the ER waiting room, so they went home so they could go to bed and get ready for school the next day.

I waited in the ER while they continued to work on her. Finally, at around 1am and after being in the ER for almost 5 hours they were ready to transport her to ICU. I don’t know if it took that long to stabilize her or if they were waiting for an available ICU room. I didn’t ask, my brain was a mess.

I went upstairs to ICU, at which point I had to wait in the waiting room up there another two hours until almost 3am before they’d let me go into her room and see her.

She was alive, but unconscious, intubated and on a breathing machine, with what seemed like a thousand wires and cables attached to her and terminating at their respective monitoring machines. There were at least half a dozen or more monitors for things like heart rate, respiratory rate, potassium levels, blood pressure, O2 levels, and others that I didn’t understand at all, along with several different IV drips.

But she was alive. I was relieved. At this point I really didn’t understand the severity of her situation, and no one was really telling me much since it was 3am. I didn’t even realize she was still listed as in critical condition. I was overwhelmed.

I told the staff I was going home to sleep for a couple hours and shower and be back around 8 or 9. They acted a bit oddly, and I know now that it was because they didn’t expect her to survive the night, but they had never told me. So I went home.

I got back early that same morning with supplies (crossword puzzle books, tea bags, phone chargers, Kindle, etc) and was told that I didn’t have to wait in the waiting room, that I could stay in her room. I camped out. She was still unconscious, and I’d watch the monitors to make sure the 02 levels stayed high, that her heart rate stayed stable, her blood pressure didn’t fall below 50 or 60, to look for any signs she was okay.

I asked if I could talk to her, if that would bother her recovery or not, and they said I could. So I’d hold her hand and talk to her, softly, like I used to when she was a little girl and had fallen asleep. Telling her I loved her, that her mom was calling, and that her boys wanted to see her soon. She didn’t move.

They told me the next day that they were going to turn off the breathing machine and see if she could breathe on her own. They had no idea if she could. If she couldn’t, they’d turn it back on and we’d know. So I had to wait for that, for a flip of the coin to see what the rest of her life would be like.

But when they stopped the machine, she could breathe on her own! I was so happy and relieved, and only then let myself think of what could have been the alternative reality.

She was still unconscious, and they still didn’t know if there was any brain damage, or the extent of that damage if it existed. So we had to wait some more. 

At one point when I was holding her hand her eyes suddenly opened for the first time, and she looked terrified and tried to sit up a bit. She calmed down, finally, and then stared right into my eyes. She still was still intubated, however. Her eyes looked incredibly sad, and I noticed tears forming and slowly rolling down her cheeks. I squeezed her hand tightly, and she closed her eyes and her vitals went back to what was her baseline.

The next morning when I got to the room she was sitting up, no longer intubated, and with a lot less wires and connections. She was tired, but could talk, and she seemed okay. She asked me what had happened, she asked if the boys were okay, she asked how long she’d been there. Her brain, miraculously, was fine.

The cardiologist had examined her, and her ejection fraction was 25%. This number refers to how efficient the heart is, the amount of blood pumped out of the lower chambers with each contraction. Normal range for a female is 55 – 75% or so. There are several ranges, but the last is called “severely abnormal” and that is anything under 30%. She was at 25.

I realize now (and did a bit then as well, but tried not to think about it) that the techs and nurses there assumed she wouldn’t make it. There were many signs: how they looked at me when they thought I wasn’t noticing, all extremely sad and despondent. When I asked if the boys could see her, the main nurse suggested against it saying “I think it’s better for children to remember their parents as strong and healthy,” that “the last image of their mother should be a good one,” etc. Stuff like that, but worded carefully.

I knew she would be okay, somehow. It wasn’t even a worry for me, once she could breathe on her own and there was no brain damage. I didn’t really understand ejection fractions, though I could tell from my father’s wife response to the number that it wasn’t good (she had been an ICU nurse over the course of her career).  Still, she kept improving.

Her blood pressure recovered, as did her heart rate and other vitals. The ejection factor was in the high-30s when they started physical therapy, and after a couple of days she could walk the length of the corridor by herself. I could tell the staff was a bit surprised at the speed of her recovery, but she was always strong physically for such a small person.

She got to leave ICU finally and spent another day in a regular hospital room, and then she was discharged. She’d been in the hospital just under a week.

She had appointments set with a cardiologist, I bought her one of those blood pressure measuring machines, and her insurance (Medicare) promised that she was allowed a home visit from a nurse three days a week for a month and then weekly for a few months after that.

The nurse never came, I learned later.

But she improved, her numbers getting better, the first cardiologist appointment I took her to a month later had good results. She seemed more normal. Her texts to me and posts to Facebook seemed more normal, not scattered, with attention to clarity. It was like my old daughter. She seemed happier.

I made sure she kept her appointments, made sure she filled the first round of prescriptions that the hospital provided, and drove her to the cardiologist so I could also answer and ask questions. The doctor seemed pleased with her progress.

During the whole week or so I had been terrified. Terrified that the paramedics couldn’t revive her. Terrified that she would never breathe on her own. Terrified that she’d be brain damaged. Terrified of a life without her, terrified for her boys and how they would respond to the loss of their mother. I’d cry when no one was around and then be mad at myself for not being more positive.

But then there was that reprieve.

I’d imagined all these horrible outcomes and scenarios for nothing. 

She was a survivor.

Acts of Kindness

Adrianna didn’t have the easiest of lives, but then maybe no one really does. Still, I think she had more than her fair share of struggle and despair. Much of it was brought on by decisions and choices she made along the way, of course… but not all of it.

I think those who are the happiest are those who feel that they’re in the most control of their lives, that what they do and how they do it matters, that if they “keep their nose clean” as my grandfather used to say they can avoid heartache and despair and stress and disaster. You make your own luck. You are in control of your destiny and fate.

Of course, I doubt anyone thinks that they are in 100% control of their lives, and likewise hopefully no one thinks they have no control at all. It’s where one falls on that continuum that matters, and I think Adrianna definitely felt that she occupied the lower part of that range for most of her life.  Much of her behavior and life choices, both good and bad, were probably directed at regaining or maintaining as much of that control as she could.

I’m going to talk more at some point about her personal demons and the life-long struggles she had with these issues, but right now I want to talk about her luck, because I think this also affected how much she felt in control of her life.

She definitely had bad luck, and often anything that could go wrong would go wrong. I understood this and commiserated with her, for my early life felt the same. An important job interview? You have a flat tire. Waiting for an important piece of mail? The sender addressed it incorrectly and you thus miss a deadline. You finally save up to fix the dryer and get it done, and the next day the washer breaks. The only car key you have falls out of your hand, bounces twice on the pavement before falling down a storm drain. That sort of thing. She attracted such events, and there really is little one can do to change such luck other than expect the worst and plan accordingly, and believe me, both of us did this. Anything for a perceived sense of control.

So any random acts of kindness she received were godsends, and they actually happened with some regularity. She felt the angels at such times were looking out for her. That’s the one good thing about living a life that isn’t easy: when good things do happen, they can seem impactful and you really notice and appreciate them.

It happened many times, but one typical example that she shared with me happened at McDonald’s. She’d take the boys there occasionally so they could play in the play area, and if she had enough money, she’d get them something to share. Never for herself, of course, but maybe an ice cream cone or an order of chicken nuggets that she’d cajole the boys to eat after they came down the slide or what have you.

One day an old couple came up to her and told her they’d seen her with the boys many times and wanted to buy them a happy meal. They obviously saw in her someone struggling with life, trying to grab a few nice moments when she could, and wanted to do something. She declined, but they insisted, and she finally accepted.

Other times she’d be at the grocery store buying some staples and come up a bit short and the person behind her would offer to make it good. Once someone left a card on her apartment door saying that they’ve watched her with her boys and that she’s doing a great job. One day when she was short of money for a bill that was due, a piece of paper that was being tousled by the wind in a parking lot finally came to rest at her feet, at which point she noticed it was a $100 bill.

These things didn’t happen that often, but they happened more than you’d expect. I’m so grateful and thankful for every nameless stranger who ever did something kind for her, and we try to play it forward whenever we can. Such little things can make a huge difference in tipping the scales, at least for that day, towards the positive, towards feeling that maybe you’re gaining just a bit more control of your life.