humanity
Humanity begins at home.
Seeking Sanctuary
It's cold. Standing here on this cold, wet night while the bitter raindrops penetrate my skin, I stare at this home. From the outside looking in, it looks nice and warm. Something you would see in a magazine with the window lit up with candles, pictured against this cold frame of the night. How could something that looks so warm and welcoming be so broken?
By Megan Ashlee Niemiec6 years ago in Families
WHY YOU SHOULD MOVE OUT OF YOUR HOMETOWN
My wife and I are planning on moving from Boise to Chicago in the next year. Boise/Meridian is my hometown. I’ve moved away in the past for 1-2 year stints. I had a pretty positive experience growing up in a suburban small town, and being here is being in the height of my comfort zone. The place where you grew up is familiar. You have points of reference to go off of. This makes a person operate in a type of auto-pilot mode. In addition, having the constant input of family members who have certain expectations of you can cloud a persons sense of self. I want to be able to respond to situations outside the context of my hometown familiarity and familial input. Being in a new environment forces you to think in new ways. It’s part of survival. If you don’t have a history somewhere, you are able to discover who you are in an entirely new way. Participating in new activities, is going into uncharted territory. Uncharted territory allows for little to no past data for your brain to input and predict what will happen in the future. This can allow you to more easily stay present and sharp.
By Allaina Bradshaw6 years ago in Families
The Untold Truth.
Homesickness set it. Why did I have to be away from familiarity? From my friends? I was hating every moment of this so-called "adventure," as my dad put it. Being only 10 years old, I never realized until that moment just how much we take advantage of the most simple things in life. Just to have a bowl of cereal, I first needed to mix the powdered milk and bottled water. What a chore! Needless to say, that was the one and only time I had cereal or milk for that matter. It was gross!
By Kat Herbert6 years ago in Families
The House That Built Me
As I write these words, I’m sitting in a living room, that holds the memories of every person I have ever loved. It was eight years ago that my mother became sick and my partner, Bryan, and I decided we needed to move in with her to help out. She still had her snappy wits about her but her legs and lungs weren’t doing so well and I didn’t want her to be alone out here in the country. It turned out to be a great move in many ways but one of the most meaningful to me was the way that Bryan and mom bonded. It was really something special to watch as they sat discussing everything imaginable for hours on end. Bryan told me that right from the start, he felt as though he had known my mom his entire life. He told me what an incredible person she was and how he had never met anyone like her. It was all really wonderful to hear and it made me smile because I knew he meant every word. Ever since my divorce more than a decade earlier, mom had been concerned about me being alone and I could feel the relief in her once she met Bryan.
By Lawson Patterson6 years ago in Families
Top of the World
I woke up to the earthy, woody smell of our bahay-kubo—a small house made out of bamboo and nipa leaves. My back feels sore from lying flat on the cold, hard bamboo floor, but I have never felt better in ages. I heard a quiet tap, like a stone falling on a wooden floor at a short distance, followed by a voice saying, “check, your turn.” I knitted my brow then looked up. There’s a person sitting in front of me; it was my grandfather. How did I just wake up lying down and now sitting up playing chess with my grandfather? I hear a song playing on my grandfather’s old stereo, a stereo so old it only plays cassette tapes, but the sound was so muffled I could barely hear the song. Although the sound was barely audible, my thoughts were already telling me what the song is. It was my grandfather’s favorite song, “Top of the World” by the Carpenters.
By Jerianne Delos Reyes6 years ago in Families
When She Made Me Promise
Growing up, I had spent many weekends sleeping in the childhood bedroom of a woman I never met. Everything stood where she had left it. The white canopy bed with baby blue accent flowers was accompanied by a small nightstand. On this table was a small book called “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, and a tiny lamp that I would leave on all night due to my fear of the dark. On this particular night, I stared at my shadow on the wall. My great-grandmother had been ill for a while. As I stared deeper into my shadow I began to think about her journey into death. All of a sudden it felt as if the Victorian walls of the home where my great-grandmother raised the grandmother I never knew were closing in on me and the floor was swallowing me whole. My breath had become shallow. My sight clouded with tears. It was in that moment that I had come to the realization that I was of this world, and because of it, I too would one day meet death. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was an eight-year-old having my first of many existential crises. My great-grandmother would succumb to her complications with diabetes March 11, 1995, The morning after my 10th Birthday. I am ashamed to admit how annoyed I was that my great-grandmother’s slow descent into death was overshadowing my birthday. Especially after the year I had. I was barely 10 years old, and I had already grown tired of talking and “living” in death. I wanted to focus on life. I wanted to focus on life because it was the only thing that distracted me from my nearly debilitating fear of death.
By Racine Lancaster6 years ago in Families
Left Behind In Cuba
My family is from Cuba. On my dad's side there are 14 brothers and sisters, all raised on a farm. On my mom's side, there are 5 siblings, all raised apart by relatives since my maternal grandmother passed away when my mother was just 18 months old.
By Chris McLennan6 years ago in Families
I'm Dreaming...
As a little girl in the 1980's, I spent my Christmases either in California with my mother or in New York with her parents. She tried to always be in New York for the Holidays, but it was rare. I was usually in New York without her. Both her parents birthdays fell in December with my grandfather's birthday falling on Christmas Day.
By Lady Sunday6 years ago in Families
I Won't Back Down
I'm pretty positive that inthis life, most of us have heard at least once, if not over and over, the phrase, "life is hard". The truth behind that simple 3 word phrase can be seering, and very hard to accept. Especially if you were just born dealt a hard hand to play to begin with. It is nice to be able to open your heart to inspirational events or even songs that come your way, and keep you going. This is my story:
By Rebecka Lamb6 years ago in Families
