When Larissa met Ian at college in 2005, she never dreamed she'd one day be his wife ... and his caretaker. After a tragic accident left Ian without the ability to speak, walk or care for himself, she did what any woman in love would do: she married him.
"There will always be the older white woman in Walmart who stared at us with sheer disgust, or the African-American mother who looked at us and just shook her head.”
If a child is born with a hole in her heart, everyone in our society would respond the same way. We would all say, "Oh, that's so sad! Is there something we can do?" No one would ever wag his head at the child or the parents and say, "You must have done something wrong!"
"Last night was too much. I couldn't bear another night of crying myself to sleep, of screaming into my pillow and praying for the pain to stop. I was tired. Tired of being sad. Tired of not being able to get out of bed. Tired of nobody caring."
"It was a hot, July afternoon when I climbed my favorite tree. The tree climbing was nothing new, but the coil of old rope wrapped around my arm was..."