The Understory by Buffy Barfoot
*Featured Artwork by Mali Fischer The word understory was gifted to me by a dear friend, as many good things are. Its meaning can be assumed, because all humans...
Category: Family
From Cambridge to Canada – An Extraordinary Love Story by Ellie Reynolds
He waited until after we had made love for the first time to reveal his age. He was thirty-six years older than me. I knew he was older, but this confession too...
#MeToo/10 Minute Read/2019 #MeToo Award Winner/ACEs/Adversity/childhood sexual abuse/Family/Girls & Women/MeToo/Rape Culture/Secrets/trauma
2019 #MeToo Essay 3rd Prize Winner: A Tale of Two Sisters by Rebecca May Hope
Since childhood sexual abuse is a risk factor for schizophrenia, I’ll always wonder what role Doug played in her plunge into insanity. I didn’t realize that the...
#MeToo/2019 #MeToo Award Winner/3 Minute Read/ACEs/Being Body/childhood sexual abuse/Escape/Family/Identity/Man in The Mirror/MeToo/PTSD/Rape Culture/Secrets/Survival/trauma
2019 #MeToo Essay 2nd Prize Winner: A Face in the Mirror by Sue Gano
In his place is a little girl with ragged clothes and a dirty face. She has my blue eyes and a cowlick that sits above the peak of her forehead. It has been a l...
#MeToo/2019 #MeToo Award Winner/7 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Being Body/childhood sexual abuse/Family/Food/Girls & Women/Inspirational/Loss/MeToo/PTSD/Rape Culture/Sexism/Survival/trauma
2019 #MeToo Essay 1st Prize Winner: The Fear is Real by Jules Carter
Fear is like a tattoo; it can never be washed away.
Love Through the Extraordinary: Marriage, Parenting, and Family in the Face of Rare Disease by Rebecca Thereault
Movements flickered on the screen in the dark of the ultrasound room like stars in the sky when we first heard her diagnosis. He tried to hold my hand as they s...
Please Survive by Catharine Lucas
For years, I believed I could FIX my son, control, restrict, protect him, by sheer force of will. When that didn’t work, I’d throw up my hands in despair and tr...
10 Minute Read/Being Body/Divorce/Domestic Violence/Escape/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Identity/Inspirational/Institutions/Loss/Love/On Memory/Recovery/trauma
What To Wear To Bankruptcy Court By By Nan McKernon
How does one find self-worth standing before the evidence of broken dreams, unrealized potential, and past mistakes? This is what plagued me as I stared at the ...
10 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Escape/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Love/Mental Illness/Mommy Dearest/nonfiction/trauma
When Grandma Went to Pakistan by Sheree Winslow
I’m not sure if my mistake was in joining together reality and fantasy or if I simply was treading someplace where I didn’t belong.