When my shaking ten-year-old begged me to hurry home, I had no idea a nightmare was waiting. I raced inside to find my husband and child cold and motionless on the living room rug. Paramedics rushed in, but the lead officer grabbed my arm, shaking his head. “Ma’am, this wasn’t an accident…”

exile Leo to the eternal darkness. But I wore the silver pendant as an anchor to reality. We did not blast off to the moon. We remained firmly tethered here, on Earth, in the trenches, where the brutal fight is. Where the relentless rain is. Where the messy, beautiful life is.

And we emerged victorious.

I pressed my thumb against the biometric scanner continue reading …