Alone. With a Capital A.

When my daughter got sick, she was eight years old.

I was working two jobs, because that’s what it took.

The first time I called out of my second job, it was okay.

The second time, the following week, the response I got was an incredulous:

“Really? Still?”

I should have taken that as a harbinger of things to come.

Of the reactions.

Of the level of support I was going to get along the way.

But I was so scared.

I was watching my daughter waste away in front of me, with no clear answers, and honestly, everything else just slipped off my radar.

There is a kind of bias that comes from never having lived through something yourself.

If you have never watched your child get sicker and sicker without knowing why, you cannot possibly understand what that feels like.

If you have never been the person trying to hold everything together while your child is falling apart, you may not understand how cruel a simple “Really? Still?” can sound.

And that’s the thing about being lucky.

Sometimes people don’t realize they’re lucky because they’ve never had to find out what happens when everything goes wrong.

Crohn’s disease is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

It was complicated in so many ways.

Treatment options were limited back then.

And she was so young to be fighting something so big.

It was not a good time.

My full-time job?

Well, that’s another story.

Actually, it’s a whole book of stories that eventually added up to a pattern I had to cut myself out of.

But that’s not really the point.

The point is that when your child is sick, you discover very quickly who is willing to help you look for answers—and who is more interested in deciding who is to blame.

People seem to sort themselves into two categories when something bad happens:

Those who seek answers.

And those who seek someone to blame.

I was the one to blame.

So I turned to private Facebook groups.

I turned to the incredible doctors and nurses at the pediatrician’s office who kept listening and kept trying.

Eventually, I turned completely over to God.

And somehow, I kept going.

When my daughter had early morning surgery, I was still on the hook for a Zoom meeting the night before.

I still shake my head when I think about that.

But the part I remember most happened while she was in surgery.

I looked around the waiting room.

Every other parent seemed to be part of a two-pack.

Two people sitting next to each other.

Two people waiting.

Two people carrying it together.

And then there was me.

I’m not saying I didn’t have support along the way.

That wouldn’t be fair.

I did.

But I felt alone.

Alone.

With a capital A.

And I think that’s something we don’t talk about enough.

How does a mother pour everything she has into her child and not have anyone pouring that much back into her?

I don’t think I did any of this with elegance or class.

I was scared.

I was angry.

I was exhausted.

I probably said things I shouldn’t have said and handled things badly sometimes.

But I did it.

I did the best I could with what I had.

And now I don’t want another mother to feel the way I felt.

Because it was hell.

I can’t change public opinion.

I can’t make everyone understand.

I can’t go back and rewrite the people who decided I was the problem.

But I can tell you what I know now.

You can do this.

And you will get through it.

Getting your sick child to wellness is an accomplishment greater than almost anything I can think of.

And it can be invisible to the outside world.

Unimportant.

Discredited even.

So you know what?

Fuck ’em.

They can think whatever they want.

They don’t have to understand what you carried.

They weren’t there.

You were.

And if, in somebody else’s version of the story, you’re still the villain?

Let them have it.

Sometimes people get so stuck in the story they have created about you that they can’t see you moving forward.

But you don’t have to stay there with them.

It’s been a few years now.

I’ve moved on.

So who is really standing still?

And who is still standing, despite it all?

Keep going, Mom.

I know it sucks.

I know you’re tired.

I know there are days when you wonder how you are supposed to keep doing one more thing, answering one more question, making one more phone call, fighting one more fight.

But keep going.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

And if no one else has said it to you lately, let me say it now:

I believe in you.

I believe your child will see better days.

And so will you.