Wounded Warrior Program – Kristen – Writer’s, Inc.
Theme – Self-Discovery- Prompt- What is Your Greatest Gift?
Warning
This took a lot of courage to not only write but to read aloud to the group. They made me feel safe and loved even though I was in tears. This one hit hard and I hope you appreciate how raw it is and how real I am being with you all. Thank you for reading it.
What is your greatest gift?
You ask me what my greatest gift is, and my mind runs over several things? Do I write about my imagination? Do I write about how I have more story ideas written down and, in my head, than I know what to do with?
Then my heart takes over. The tears fill my eyes as this is always hard to talk about. I don’t have just one greatest gift, but I have six greatest gifts. My greatest gifts are our children.
I know it may sound sappy or cliche, but the journey it took to get to where we are now with my beautiful family is one of grief, pain, excitement, and love.
My husband and I met in high school. We dated on and off, went our separate ways, he to join the Navy and me to go to college, and we stopped talking for a while. We saw each other again once while he was stationed in Florida for training and was back in California to visit family and friends. In Walmart of all places and my mom in a hushed voice told me to be nice.
We talked that day and again went our separate ways. But as fate had it, we started emailing each other and the rest is history.
We married in 2007 on Oahu.
A few years later, we decided it was time to start a family.
We tried and sadly the first two years, even with help from an infertility doctor, we suffered from three miscarriages. I gave myself shots before the third miscarriage. We were devastated.
Miraculously, a few months after the third miscarriage, I was pregnant! And she stuck! Our first daughter was born in December of 2013.
Three years later, we tried again, but sadly we suffered from a fourth miscarriage. Again, grief set in.
A year later in July of 2018, we welcomed our second daughter. We couldn’t be happier.
So, my greatest gifts, our greatest gifts, are our four angel babies even with the pain of remembering them. Our greatest gifts are our two amazing, beautiful rainbow daughters, Kierra and Cara.
Sidenote
The picture I have used is an edit done by Magical Edits by Nycole on Facebook.