“SOMETIMES YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES COME TRUE. AND THEN THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THINGS COME TRUE THAT ARE EVEN MORE HORRIBLE THAN YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES. LIFE OFTEN DOESN’T FIGHT FAIR. BUT IT’S STILL A FIGHT NONETHELESS, AND WE ARE ALL A PART OF IT”                                                                                                                      – RYAN BARBOUR

My name is Michelle Rosoff and I am a mom of three. My youngest two live with me and my oldest is up in heaven. The above quote, written by my late daughter’s boyfriend, became all too real for me on September 3, 2016, the day my life as I knew it tragically changed. The day my 17 year old beautiful daughter Rachel was taken from me in a very tragic and preventable accident.Rachel was a lifeguard and absolutely loved her job. On this fateful day, while preparing the pool for the day, she was electrocuted due to the water becoming electrified, due to very shoddy electrical work and incompetence.  She was all alone and was found hours later floating in the pool.

After the Funeral was over and everyone was gone to carry on with their seemingly perfect lives, I felt so alone and hopeless. I slowly began going through some of my daughter’s belongings and stumbled upon what I consider to be a true treasure: some of the most incredible writings of hers that I never had seen before. I always knew she was a gifted writer and her dream was to be a writer for Saturday Night Live, but I never knew how insightful and deep she was. So as I painfully went through her books and belongings, I began to find comfort in her words and felt that, in a strange way, a lot of what was written was specifically written by her to help me heal from her death.

Rachel used her writing as therapy and was able to express her thoughts and feelings in a manner in which she can put them on paper and gain a clearer understanding of herself, often offering herself advice and solutions in those same writings.

I decided to take my daughters lead and begin this blog, posting my feelings, fears, obstacles etc.. I face daily to help me get it out and maybe along the way connect with or help another mom or dad facing the unfortunate challenge of living without their child.