Over time, we would learn each other, and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

She was perfect. I knew this the moment she emerged from my body, white and wet and wailing. Beyond the requisite ten fingers and ten toes, the beating heart, the lungs inhaling and exhaling oxygen, my daughter knew how to scream. She knew how to make herself heard. She knew how to reach out and latch on. Furthermore, she knew what she needed to do to survive. I didn’t know how it was possible that such perfection could have developed within a body as flawed as my own, but when I looked into her face, I saw that it clearly was.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The open forgiveness in her eyes, the uncensored love, terrified me.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

There's still something so pure and heartfelt and emotional and genuine about a bouquet of flowers that, even with all the advances of technology and the millions of ways we have to communicate with each other, flowers are still relevant in my opinion.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

There was only one way to the other side, and that was through the pain.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Victorian language of flowers began with the publication of 'Le Language DES Fleur's,' written by Charlotte de Latour and printed in Paris in 1819. To create the book - which was a list of flowers and their meanings - de Lat our gathered references to flower symbolism throughout poetry, ancient mythology, and even medicine.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

This time, there was no escape, I could not turn away, could not leave without accepting what I had done. There was only one way to the other side, and that was through the pain.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Though politics is by nature divisive, surely we all can agree that foster children need stability, safety, education, opportunity - and love.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

We all make mistakes, and we all need second chances. For youth in foster care, these mistakes are often purposeful - if not consciously so; a way to test the strength of a bond and establish trust in a new parent.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh

We are more and more into technology. Everything is texting, and everything is instant. Flowers are completely impractical as a method of communication when you could just send a text.

— Vanessa Diffenbaugh