My feet ached, but it was well worth it. This is what I said when I completed that trek. The endless days and nights, the rationed food and just the stunning landscape of the mountains. I found it hard but I turned to God and prayed that I could complete this journey. I kept in mind the young children and their families. Raising money and supporting them made me so happy and feel accomplished. I would love to do this again but I wonder, could I do this again?
They pulled up to the old bar, the Far Bar. They had been there numerous times before, but this was to be their last before projecting out of their own bodies and into some others.
"Come on, dad, of course she remembers you. Will you please just mellow out and come inside with me?"
"No way, buddy boy. You go right on in. Fuck her for all I care. Just let me lie in this car. This is where I'll die. Right here...in the volvo."
The son jumped out of the car and fisted his hand in a knot, shaking...
Dear Mom,
Do you remember this picture? I do. I remember a lot about those days, when we were a family. Yesterday, I recreated this exact image with my daughter. Tess turned five on Tuesday. She's so excited to start school next month. I'm only scared that other kids will ask her about her family. I don't want to tell her that most of her family didn't want her. I don't want to tell her that Grandma and Grandpa wanted her to disappear.
I have no idea if this letter will make you love my daughter but I want you...
Heaven; such a harmonious place.
With luscious trees and elevated mountains.
A lighthouse standing tall in the distance;
An lingering canoe floating in the shimmering lake.
Billowy clouds soaring across the sky.
A car driving down the road.
God is in presence;
We are in heaven.
The lamp wouldn't turn on. The bed felt heavy on the other side. A draft of warm and slobbery air was on his neck. He flicked and flicked the switch, and failing and rubbing his finger raw he leapt out of the bed and ran to the wall. The lights coming on, the room appearing all at once its sterile, diseased-yellow look. The covers tousled, pillows strewn, the light greyish-yellow stain like a teardrop on the wall behind the simple wrought-iron headboard.
Panting now, hand clasped tight on the switchplate, and wits coming back only like a smoldering fire. There...
I awoke to the sound of waves, big waves slamming against the walls of the... house? No, boat. It was definitely a boat. I struggled to get up, as if I had been sleeping for one thousand years, and when I did, I met my room mate. He didn't say much, just a slight nod in my direction, as he made his bed. When he turned around, I grimaced at the large hole in his back. Only then did I realize that I had a cut on my head. More like a gash really, I was so gruesome. That's when...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. The rain was falling around her and she looked out into the street, wondering when she should make her break for it. Sensing that the rain wouldn't let up for quiet some time, she dashed onto the streets holding her package close to her chest. Her eyes flitted from side to side as she transversed the narrow streets and alleys.
She saw the blue door ahead of her and pumped her legs harder, eager to reach her destination. She threw herself against the door with a...
I sat there every day waiting. But nothing ever happened. I hoped if I sat there long enough that she would come back and everything would be back to normal. I knew that when she was pulled from the car that there was no turning back. I thought maybe if I had her in my mind, it could reverse that awful event that caused so much pain and grief. At least I am not alone on my journey back to recovery with my family and friends by my side hopefully I can move on. But I know truly that I...
She normally didn't speak up. She was the quiet, reserved type. The type who'd sit at the bar with her friends, and just silently listen to the conversation around her.
It was Julie that got her frustrated, though. Not just frustrated, angry. Julie was talking about the camp she'd sent her son to, one of those camps that promotes a more 'traditional' lifestyle. They advertised it as being 'moral' and 'healthy'.
The young woman had no children of her own, she was far too young for that. She worried that she was wrong for telling somebody else to raise their...
The shoes, though pink and shiny and paired with flat white tights, were not what you wanted. "They are not ballerina shoes," you protested, knowing very well the difference from the ballet flats and the pointe shoes and just regular human shoes.
"I want some like yours," you said.
Your mother no longer wore her ballet shoes; she had once been a prima ballerina, and there were photographs of her and postcards in sepia tones that captured her in a moment of what seemed like effortless grace. Arm raised, elbow bent at such an angle that she looked like the...