“I knew from the beginning we've got to do this together. It makes me cry right now when I think about it, that kind of profound connection. My children never knew when they came home from school if I would be there or in the hospital with another broken bone. When I think about the dynamics between parents and their children, when there's a disease in either direction, there's a dynamic that's very unique, there's a sense of wanting to protect each other."

 "One of the most incredible and powerful and poignant things that I've learned in my later years is that it's never too late to work with the living, passionate thing that the relationship with your children can be. You can say, 'I wish I had done this ... I wish I had been there for Jay's soccer game ... I wish I had been there for all the previews of Aarin's films ...’ but the thing that's so powerful and the biggest lesson they've taught me is that it's never too late.”

SINGLE MOTHERHOOD

"If my art could convey a message of importance to children, I would hope for it to be for them to believe in themselves and their dreams, to value their own special abilities and spirit, and most of all, to find many ways to create, express, and share that spirit with others.” 

I'm just so incredibly, hugely grateful to my children that they allowed me to come home and say, ‘let's do it differently now.’ I spent a lot of years being ashamed – of not saving time for my children, about not having enough money, even ashamed of my disease. Now, at what may be one of the most painful times of my life, I am most optimistic. I refuse to have anything in my life that I can't turn around into something magical and beautiful. I just refuse. I just won't do it." 

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