Why Me? A Reflection Several Years later
If we’re being honest, we both know what it feels like to fall into the “Why me?” mindset. Life is full of curveballs—some small and laughable, others life-altering and deeply painful. We’ve both lived through plenty of those moments: the chaotic, the unexpected, the heartbreaking. And while our stories look different in the details, they meet in the same raw place—the one where you’re sitting in the middle of the mess, asking Why is this happening? Why us? Why our children?
Years ago, “Why me?” came up in the everyday annoyances—spilled coffee, forgotten receipts, totaled cars (yes, one involved a taco), failed tests, and frozen runaway hamsters. Life was messy and unpredictable, and I sometimes felt like I had really bad luck. And while I could usually laugh at it, deep down I often wondered why everything seemed to be so hard.
Then came the biggest “Why me?” of my life.
At 36 weeks pregnant with my first child, I was told during a last-minute ultrasound that something was wrong. Kai had hydrocephalus—an unexpected and serious diagnosis that flipped our world upside down. My pregnancy had been perfectly normal up until that moment, which made the news feel even more jarring. I remember the fear, the confusion, the medical terms I couldn’t fully understand, and the helplessness of hearing doctors rush into the room with serious faces and quiet voices.
But what I remember most clearly is that Saturday morning, just two days after we found out. I sat alone in Kai’s nursery, curled up on the floor with my back against his crib, and sobbed. I begged God for answers. “Why me? Why him?” I wanted to hear some loud, divine voice giving me clarity—but all I felt was silence and sadness.
And yet, something changed in that silence. Not with lightning or revelation, but with a quiet understanding that I could do this. That I would do this. And that Kai deserved the strongest version of me—no matter how broken I felt at that moment.
Seven years have passed. And while we’ve certainly faced more hard days than most, I can now say something I couldn’t back then: there is joy on the other side of the “Why Me?” Not because things magically got easier—but because I learned how to live in the hard and still find beauty anyway.
Things don’t magically get easier, you learn how to live in the hard and still find joy.
That question—Why us?—has echoed in both of our lives in different seasons. And while we may never fully understand the “why,” what we do know now, several years down the road, is this: you can find joy in the very place where your heart once broke.
That joy didn’t come all at once. It came in small, sacred moments. It came through connection. It came through choosing to live in the tension of grief and gratitude, heartache and hope. And it came through watching our children teach us more than we could have ever imagined about strength, love, and what truly matters.
From that pain, something beautiful was born—Lemon Cake.
We created Lemon Cake for families like ours—families raising children with medical complexities or disabilities who are trying to find their footing in a world that doesn’t always understand their path. Lemon Cake is a community, a resource, and a place to be reminded: you are not alone.
Our journey inspired us to write “Finding Joy in the Journey”, an honest and heartfelt guide for parents walking through the hard, sacred work of raising medically complex kids. It’s the book we wish we had at the beginning. The reminder that joy does exist—even here. Especially here.
So if you find yourself today asking, Why me? Why us?—we see you. We’ve been there. And while we don’t have all the answers, we can offer you this: You are not broken. Your child is not a mistake. And your family’s story—no matter how hard—is worth telling. Let yourself grieve. Let yourself ask hard questions. And when you’re ready, look up. Joy may not erase the pain, but it will rise alongside it.
Love you, Cake Pop!
-The Lemon Cake Girls
