I have raised my twin daughters, Brielle and Taryn, on my own since they were six years old.
Both girls were born with a spinal condition that left them unable to walk. By the time they were toddlers, doctors had already explained that the damage was permanent, so our lives became a long series of adjustments that eventually stopped feeling unusual to us.
There were physical therapy appointments, wheelchair fittings, school meetings, insurance appeals, ramps that needed repairing, and endless phone calls to places that advertised themselves as accessible but somehow had three steps leading to the front door.
Their mother, Colette, left three months after the girls turned six.
She didn’t disappear in the middle of the night. In some ways, I think that would have been easier to understand.
Instead, she sat across from me at our kitchen table one evening after the girls had gone to bed and told me she couldn’t do it anymore.
