Sisters by Marguerite Welch
*Featured Artwork: “How Grey Was My Garden” by Elizabeth Cassidy I Easter Dresses Every Easter Mother made us matching tulle dresses with layers of ...
Category: Relationships
Hats and Newspapers by Kathryn Curto
My father called me names, made me cry, and one time even threw my plate of Easter frittata at the wall because he said I was being fresh. But he was the best n...
15 Minute Read/Adversity/Environmental/Incarceration/Inspirational/Justice/Man in The Mirror/men/nonfiction/On Writing/Relationships/Society/writing
“Put Down Your Pistol and Pick Up a Pen” by Dennis Danziger and John Rodriguez
Such can be the power of a teacher’s words. I was certain that all my Gen Ed students had their own Miss Laughlin who turned them off to the joys of reading and...
15 Minute Read/ACEs/Adversity/Craft Essays/Featured/Family/Girls & Women/Identity/Immigrants/Inspirational/Love/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/Memory/Mommy Dearest/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/On Writing/On Memory/Parenting/personal essay/Race Matters/Regret/Relationships/Sexism/Society/Survival/trauma
How 90 Day Fiancé Helped Me Tell My Story as the Child of a Mail Order Bride by Katya Suvorova
I don’t have a mom who fell in love how I was able to fall in love. My mother is a survivor in a way most Americans won’t ever understand. I am honored to be th...
Dementia/7 Minute Read/Aging/Bi-Polar/Cancer/Depression/Family/Fathers/Girls & Women/Grief/Health/Identity/Loss/Love/Medicine/Memory/Mental Illness/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/trauma
The Hope of Better Hearing Aids by Rosann Tung
I try to cool the heat in my cheeks that her sarcastic “wise, rich daughter” comment brings on. Her walker embarrasses me, too – unsightly, attention-seeking, d...
5 Minute Read/ACEs/Childhood/Featured/Faith/Family/Fathers/Grief/Inspirational/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Memory/Mental Health/nonfiction/Parenting/Relationships/trauma
Haunting Words by Emma Rose
I am lazy, fat, asinine, stupid. I still feel his red hot anger, the spit on my face, and the insults flying toward me. The feelings and labels remain, despite ...
Forgive Me by Lisa Mae DeMasi
It was only a matter of time before one of us was going to break down and scream, beat our fists against the van’s upholstery in disbelief and frustration.
The Special Of The Day by Barbara Carter
No longer does he even want conversation. He’s in a hurry, wanting only one thing. He wants me as convenient as a drive-through. I sleep with him because I don’...
15 Minute Read/ACEs/Being Body/Childhood/Domestic Violence/Family/Mommy Dearest/Mothers/nonfiction/Relationships/trauma
Love Sick by Charlotte Wilkins
Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately, an elemental life not “frittered away by detail.” He wrote about the essentials of life, “I do believe in simpli...
15 Minute Read/ACEs/Childhood/Escape/Family/Fathers/Girls & Women/Love/men/Mommy Dearest/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Relationships/Society/Survival/trauma
I Am My Longing by Susan Ostrov Weisser
There were my mother’s stories, and there were my books. Books were imaginary but some books could be true; Betty’s stories were neither true nor not-true, they...
10 Minute Read/ACEs/Aging/Childhood/Featured/Family/Girls & Women/Grief/Loss/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Relationships/Secrets/Sexism/Society/Survival
My Mother’s Back by Mary Zelinka
Her admission that her diagnosis was terrible news showed a vulnerability in her I had never before witnessed. I had believed that nothing ever weighed on her,...
Adversity/Featured/Health/Inspirational/Justice/LGBTQ/Love/men/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/Society
In Sickness and in Health by Scott Bane
Right in the middle of some everyday activity, I’m overtaken by a sense of joy, peace, or contentment. The window often closes up just as quickly as it has ope...
10 Minute Read/Divorce/Family/Funny/Girls & Women/Inspirational/Love/Memoir/men/nonfiction/Relationships
But There Were Daffodils by Marian Rogers
In a second union, things you took for granted during those years with your first spouse float in your unconscious like twigs along a clear or muddied stream, o...
5 Minute Read/Addiction/Childhood/Family/Fathers/Grief/Loss/Love/nonfiction/Parenting/personal essay/Regret/Relationships/war
King’s X and Cabbadoni by Marguerite Welch
Life with Dad was an endless game. We shot candles out of Mother's silver candelabra on the picnic table. I learned to drive racing the jeep around hay bales in...
10 Minute Read/Aging/Alzheimer's/Escape/Family/Identity/Loss/Love/Mothers/Mothers and Daughters/nonfiction/Relationships
The Mermaid By Jean Sheppard
Only when the moon rises do I see it, see her—the glint of silver and then green and silver, the flash of scales. Only then do I know: my mother is a mermaid, a...