parents

The boundless love a parent has for their child is matched only by their capacity to embarrass them.

I have to talk about it
On December 31st, 2020 this day changed my life. My constant person my mother, worked fulltime at the young age of 71, say what she felt and we talk everyday. I wouldn't know what to do if she wasn't in my life. I could honestly say my mother is my friend, I could talk to her about anything. Interrupting my thoughts was the ping from my computer letting me know that the email of my papers to HR was just sent. I had requested a personal leave of absence. I focused my eyes back on the computer screen just to confirm the forms were sent. I feel so scattered right now, my mind is racing and I feel like I am in a dream. Someone please wake me up!
By Helen Golden5 years ago in Families
Love Letters from Heather
Dear Dad, I gained a much fuller appreciation of you in 2018 when I asked point blank questions about your upbringing in order to glean a story for the anthology Brainstorm Revolution Wintertickle Press was publishing. You were 88 years old at the time and still chopping trees, cutting grass, shovelling driveways, checking Facebook—all things you might consider mundane, but things I think impressive!
By Heather Down5 years ago in Families
Daddy Issues
Daddy Issues By Kami Bryant My dad walked out when I was a baby, and my mother raised me on her own. He said he came back to us, but we had moved. My mother said she got tired of his womanizing ways, leaving her, and then coming back over and over, so we moved. His other daughter, my half-sister found us in Illinois and wrote to us. She gave us my dad’s contact information and I wrote to him. I was eight when he replied to my letter. In that letter he said to never contact him again, that he didn’t want to be in my life. I was understandably crushed, and this led to a lifetime of horrible relationships with men, a fear of abandonment and daddy issues.
By Kami Bryant5 years ago in Families
Lucky Ticket
My hands shake as I hand over the bills to the attendant at the gas station. The place smells like cleaner and stale hot dogs, and the floor is covered in marks from where the mop went by with dirty water. He asks to see my ID and so I fish it out of the plastic sleeve in my wallet, the leather worn from years of use. He looks at it then hands me a playslip. I write down the numbers I’ve been thinking about all morning, hesitating when the gravity of it all makes my pen waver. If I order them in just the right way, I could win. If I don’t, I’m short $10 that I probably shouldn’t have parted with, and possibly left with a broken heart. I let impulse decide for me, and hand the slip back to the guy. In return, he hands me my ticket and asks if there’s anything else he can get me. I say yes, actually there is and walk out with a pack of cigarettes.
By Maggie5 years ago in Families
Choice
Choices “Shhh! Be quiet!” “I don't see anyth– Is he dead?” Matthew asked. It's after midnight in Manito Park. Matthew and his friend Ely come here often late at night for something to do. As they approached their usual spot along the rock wall, there was a terrible smell.
By Jim Carney5 years ago in Families
The Manifestation Book
My parents have always been terrified of the internet. They are convinced that it is the root of most of the world’s issues. They also think that computers are going to kill humans, an impending fear they had adopted in the early ages of technology. I was never allowed to have any electronics while growing up. My parents refused my requests and ignored my complaints about other kids having luxuries that I did not. To make up for it, they would let me check out as many books as I would like from the library. It was a regular thing for me, finding so many different novels. I did not want to put any of them down because I knew I would not remember them the next time I would visit. My mother’s eyes widened at the sight of me weighed down by so many books, my torso leaning backward. I was dedicated to getting every single one of them. She would never say a word to me about it. My eyes would always skim past the movies, but my mother would grab my hand and pull me towards the countless towers of words. I truly felt that it was unfair of them to hold me back from something everyone else got to enjoy. It was infuriating to never know what my friends were talking about when they would mention shows and movies on TV. I would tell them that it was my choice to stay away from technology, to save myself from the embarrassment. I was never curious about all the reasons as to why my parents kept the technology from me, until one day when I admitted to my absolute best friend that I didn’t hate technology. All my defensive nagging about why TV rots the brain was rooted from my parent’s irrational fears. My friend sparked a new wave of curiosity within me. She genuinely wanted to know what dangerous scenarios were going through my parent’s minds. Did they imagine human-like robot war villains with guns, or maybe robots that had intelligence of biological warfare, or did they simply fear what technology was doing to people’s social skills, like so many adults did. I wanted to give her an answer, but I had never questioned my parents about the details of their overdramatized nightmares. That day when I got home, I did not hesitate. I was going to get to the bottom of it all and then tomorrow I was going to tell my best friend about all their crazy ideas.
By Arty Connerton5 years ago in Families
Parental Alienation Ruined My Life
February 9, 2021 If you want to know, then this is my story. Read it if you like. If I ask you to, I’ll tell you what I want from you. My story is all true and I would like for the reader to take away the fact that parental alienation destroyed me entirely over the course of the last twenty years and if you can help me in any way, I would greatly appreciate it. To reunite with my children would make me forever grateful. Let me begin by ensuring everyone that I am not a criminal. I have never been charged in a court of law for any crime other than a misdemeanor crime. I have not been convicted of a felony or federal crime. Some of the charges were charges brought about during the parental alienation period of my life. When I was divorcing my ex-husband, he had me arrested falsely, and turned wanting to be a mother into a crime. How is it in the best interest of the children to ruin their mother emotionally and financially? I have no felony charges. These are all misdemeanors, all are alcohol related, all except one are over 10 years old and most can be linked to this traumatic event in my life. I’d like for you to read my narrative explaining how parental alienation has ruined my life. I am unable to find work because of my record with SLED. People will hire me, but then retract the offer when they run my background.
By [email protected]5 years ago in Families
From the Grave
This was my third Goodwill store. Even now, in mid-January, it wasn’t that cold in San Jose, but finding a cold-weather jacket for wear in near-freezing temperatures was proving harder than I anticipated. And I was running out of time.
By Jack St. Clair5 years ago in Families
Mom’s Last Page
She sat across from me in that room and we waited. We both knew each other better than to fill the silence with conversation. I felt slightly nauseous at what news would soon be delivered by, I assume, a well-bred doctor that gave this news to many families over the years. I was right. His kind eyes and straightforwardness were appreciated and seemed well practiced, which saddened me even further. My mom sat stoic and absorbed the words I knew she was expecting. After he left, we both looked at each other and understood there would be nothing more done here. No rounds of this or transfusions of that. She was done. She had been done years ago when my father passed. She had told me this numerous times since she we moved in together some 3 years back. What prompted all of this, was that my mom had begun to turn a kind of yellow color a few months back. She was becoming more and more tired, putting her head on the table after dinner to be woken up by me encouraging her to get to bed a half an hour later. She had MS since I was in 8th grade, making her around 40 then. She was 76 when she passed, it had nothing to do with her MS. Within a week of turning a sickly yellow, she was scanned and a biopsy concluded she had bile duct cancer. Who knew that was really a thing? I knew about pancreatic cancer and how that had a terrible end so I imagined this would be very similar. It was.
By Molly Pastori 5 years ago in Families
The Wish-Granter
The wish-granter has a thankless job. It wouldn't seem so, not at first; people wish for things they truly want, or things they at least think they truly want. It would make sense, then, that someone who gets something they want badly enough to wish for it—to beg a nameless, faceless entity in the sky for this one thing—that they'd be falling over themselves to give thanks when they suddenly found themselves with that thing.
By Kari Woodrow5 years ago in Families
Living Legacy
Turgid. The first time I can remember ever hearing this word, it was uttered by my father. Our family was on a river boat cruise on the Ohio River, and, as he peered studiously over the side, he declared that the water was particularly turgid that day.
By Ken Fendley5 years ago in Families
The Infinite Game
The Infinite Game By Don Jones Word count: 1,998 words plus title “Legend has it that Cleopatra, Lao Tzu, Joan of Arc, Leonardo DaVinci, Emile Bronte, Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemmingway all used the same single notebook.” My dad said, when I was nine.
By Don Jones5 years ago in Families