The Journey to the Truth
— Meagan Earley

I’ve known since I was a small child that whenever I pass, I want to go to a specific cemetery. It sounds odd, I know, but five generations of family ahead of me have…

When my daughter Austen passed away last summer, I honestly believed I wouldn’t be able to survive the pain. She was 9 years old, and I’d spent eight and a half of those years…

Yearbooks are like mirrors that give us a glimpse into the past. As a teacher, I love looking at them. During the school year, I’m so focused on the daily ins and outs of…

My family moved to Colorado when Austen, my daughter who last summer passed away at age 9 from complications of Dravet syndrome, was just a year old. We moved to get her access…

Austen, my 9-year-old who passed away from Dravet syndrome last summer, was the only one of my children I named. Addisen, her 17-year-old sister, and Atlas, her 11-year-old brother, were named by their…

None of my children are exactly alike, and I like it that way. Each has an individual, vibrant personality; while one might like theater, another favors video games. Siblings, whether they share the…

The first year after losing a loved one is filled with many firsts. I anticipated many of these moments being hard after Austen, my 9-year-old daughter, passed away last summer due to complications of…

Grief is weird. One day you seem perfectly fine, but the next day the pain is so intense that you don’t think you can physically breathe without your loved one. As a parent, I…

Within days of my daughter Austen’s accident last summer, I began to think I’d never be able to live in our old house again. A week or so after she died, I went back,…

My daughter Austen, who passed away last summer at age 9 from complications of Dravet syndrome, wasn’t attached to many things. It may have been related to her autism, but she just wasn’t…

Losing my daughter Austen, who had Dravet syndrome, was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through in my life. There’s no way around that. It doesn’t matter if you know your child is…