family
Family unites us; but it's also a challenge. All about fighting to stay together, and loving every moment of it.
Red Rain Boots
A young girl sits beside her grandmother on a front porch swing. She sits still and patient, listening to her grandmother tell her, what she believes to be, a tall tale. Clad in her usual purple coat and her cherry red rain boots, the little girl looks out past the front yard, across the road to the neighbor’s field. The field has been dormant for quite some time, overgrown with grassy weeds and arbitrary stalks of corn.
By Cecilia Gross4 years ago in Humans
I've Got Daddy Issues
Maybe they aren’t like the daddy issues you’d expect because I didn’t grow up in a stereotypically ‘abusive’ home. My parents are still married, none of my five siblings do drugs, they all enjoy sleepovers with friends, and go to church every week, the works.
By Emily Dickerson4 years ago in Humans
Chevak Alaska
My name is Cody. I was born on August 8, 1989. My dad named me. The day I was born he was firefighting out in the great Alaskan wilderness. When word of my birth reached him, his squad cheered in honor of my dad conceiving a little gay son, muah. On the plane ride to meet me for the first time he came up with the name Cody Tucker Ferguson. I am the seventh son of Harry and Lena Ferguson.
By Cody Ferguson4 years ago in Humans
The Heartache of Dementia
One never knows if and when it will happen to them. People from from 30 years old & up! The common age is 65 and up and 1 in 14 people that age will get diagnosed with it. My mother was diagnosed at 73, but I believe she had symptoms a year or so before that, but I missed them. My father (they divorced when I was 6) was diagnosed with cancer in every organ of his body and I had moved away from home to take care of him until he passed away. When I came back home, she seemed a little different, but when she couldn't tell me what a tulip was or a daffodil.... I KNEW something was VERY wrong!
By T. K. Wilson4 years ago in Humans
Ode to a Friendship
We met as kids at the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When seated in alphabetical order, Joseph Francis McKenna noted how we Micks formed a pod. He and Tim and I were buddies hanging out on the “playground” that was a parking lot in front of the church and school. The actual playground with swings and monkey bars near the graveyard was reserved for younger kids. The parish was established in 1875 and we attended about a century later when there was nothing much to do at recess but stand around and talk. We acted like it was our job to crack each other up.
By Vivian R McInerny4 years ago in Humans
To my son
Finding out I was pregnant with you baby was the best day in my life. I have to admit I jumped in the air in excitement. I had to find a way to tell your father and I did it in the best secretive way I could. After taking that pregnancy test I went back out to get something that I knew would make your father the happiest man. I went to the baby aisles and found a bib that said what I wanted it to say. It had Mickey Mouse on it and it said welcome to the world. I rushed back to the place I was staying in and waited patiently for the time to go by so I could go pick up your father and give him what I put in the red box.
By Gabriela Marcial4 years ago in Humans
Worst Case Scenario
It's never a good sign when someone you’re giving mouth-to-mouth to starts bleeding from the ear. It’s even worse when every breath you breathe causes bubbles to come up through that blood with a sickening wheezing sound. What makes it all but unbearable is when the victim is a child -- a child you know -- a child who only moments ago was riding in the back of the pickup you were driving ...
By Dave Ruskjer4 years ago in Humans
Dear Lucas (2021)
This will be my final annual letter to you. It will not be the last time I write about you, mental health, suicide prevention, or any other subject encapsulated in this universe. It will just be the final time I sit down on the eve of your passing with the intention of searching for a lesson to be found in your sudden loss and sharing it with the world.
By Nathan Box4 years ago in Humans
How To Flip The Switch from "Mom" to "Wife" When The Lights Go Out...
I am a mom of three and the same cycle happens after every child that I have. I struggle to "flip the switch" from being a mom during the day and then somehow trying to be a sexy wife at night for my husband. There is just something about having spit-up on your shirt, changing diapers, and hardly being able to shower that just makes me feel as unsexy as possible.
By Jaquelyn Cannon4 years ago in Humans
When a Lullaby Isn't Enough
Mother—why did you not hold me close when I cried at night? I held out my tiny fingers to grasp you, to try and keep you near me, but you never reached out to me at all. Sometimes I wonder if you were just sitting in the other room, eyes widen open, as my nightmares swirled with a sleepless fugue of being.
By Jillian Spiridon4 years ago in Humans
