How Love You Forever Got a Mom Through Tough Times
1 Mom Shares How the Book "I Love You Forever" Got Her Through 2 Births and a Cancer Diagnosis
The night before my boys were born, I packed this book in my overnight suitcase. I tucked it under their blankies and...
Posted by Katy Ursta on Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Katy Ursta — a mom of two and cancer survivor — recently shared why every single second you spend with your kids matters. In an emotional post, she explained how the children's book Love You Forever got her through so many of life's milestones — both good and bad — in a surprising way.
"The night before my boys were born, I packed this book in my overnight suitcase," she wrote. "I tucked it under their blankies and their going home outfits (which both ended up being too big). It was under all the 'necessary postpartum must-haves' along with a bottle of chilled champagne. Long after the family and friends went home for the night and I laid there in my hospital bed, first with Nick and then a few years later with Dom, overwhelmed with joy and fear and gratitude and pain."
"I quietly read my sons this book," said Katy. "I cried. Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe it was the fear. Maybe it was the gratitude but I think then . . . it was the simple thought that this tiny human, this small bundle, one day would grow and I was responsible. I prayed that night, 'God please don't let him grow too fast.' The days often feel so long, but the years, they're going fast, aren't they?"
"He took that book out with his big smile and said, 'Mommy are you going to cry if we read this?' How could he remember that?"
She continued: "A few months after Dom was born, Mike and I received the news that I had cancer. It was Stage 4 and they would need to begin treatment immediately. There wasn't much time to process our new normal, and shortly before treatment one night, I found myself on Nick's bed, kinda numb, tucking him in for the night, Mike holding Dom. And again, I quietly read the book. I cried. This time among all the words, and the pages of the story were my quiet prayers and tears: 'God please let me be here to watch them grow up.'"
After officially going into remission after months of chemotherapy in August of 2014, Katy had forgotten about the book. Things came full circle when one of Katy's boys picked out Love You Forever as his bedtime story recently one night. "I don't know why," she said. "It was tucked on the bottom of the shelf, forgotten. Hidden away. But he took that book out with his big smile and said, 'Mommy are you going to cry if we read this?' How could he remember that? I responded, 'Always.' And as I read the words and cried I prayed, 'Thank you God for the gift of watching them grow up. Thank you for the messy moments and the hard moments. Thank you for this moment with Dom's arms around me.'"
Katy's sentimental moment has a deeper message: cherish every single second that you have with your children. "Seasons of motherhood are hard," she wrote. "Seasons of motherhood are messy and complicated and sometimes downright exhausting but no moment is guaranteed. The simple truth is I am here. I get to be their mom. I am watching them grow. And above all, I get to love them forever, my babies they will always be."
