humanity
Humanity begins at home.
Raising children during a pandemic
I am a mother of four. Three are my biological children. One is a step-child. In today's world, with COVID-19 ravaging even the most remote areas now, decision making about anything has become difficult. Sometimes more difficult for some than others. I believe the most difficult decisions belong to parents.
By Elizabeth Parker6 years ago in Families
Little Black Book of Generosity
Two cups of rice...Heather wrote down in her small black notebook, sighing and breathing heavily. Heather had a habit of writing down what she owed to Mrs Thompson, the nice, elderly lady living next door. Mrs. Thompson never bothered asking Heather for payment, but Heather promised to return the kindness.
By Lucius White6 years ago in Families
"The Stronghearts"
It was the summer of ’79 when I first laid eyes on them. A 1956 teal blue Ford sedan rumbled by our Santa Fe style compound, our home, where I and my siblings grew up. The neighborhood and particularly the street we lived on; "Camino Sierra Vista" was considered “The Barrio” in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A Spanish term for “The Ghetto.” However, we were so fond of our hood and had no idea that we were poor, nor lived in a part of town that was considered less than.
By Echo Johnson6 years ago in Families
On The Border
I was born and raised in Miami, a colorful oceanside city which borders the rest of the State of Florida. As a child, I could be found on any given night of the week running the halls of any number of Miami art galleries. If it were midnight on a Tuesday and you saw a 9 year-old sitting at a bar on South Beach, it was likely me. I would drink whatever juice concoctions appealed to me as I tried my best to impress my newly assigned “babysitter”, a model and part-time bartender. With a mother immersed in the social art scene, South Beach was my playground. By middle school, I would skip class and take the train to the beach. As an adult, I would go the beach and my favorite bar, religiously, every Sunday. No matter the weather anywhere else in Miami, it was always sunny at the beach. South Beach is home to a colorfully diverse international community, and yet it is anchored not by the differences of its inhabitants, but their humane similarities. A humans’ primal interest in seeking pleasure was the inspiring breath that gave life to the inhabitants of my first home. No one cared what you did or who you did, as long as you didn’t hurt others and you paid your tab. It is a community of people who respect the individuality of each persons’ unique definition of bliss and your right to follow it.
By Deenewshhkah Ess6 years ago in Families
The Generous People
Let me tell you a story of the most generous and compassionate people ! This is a story spanning across two centuries and will include an extended family with such diversity in their bloodline that you just can’t help but understand why they are such a dysfunctional bunch ! Their lineage can be traced all the way back as far as history has been recorded and they have both royalty and peasantry, masters and slaves in their bloodline. They have been known to be worshippers of all sorts of deity’s and absolute non believers as well! They claim origins from every corner of the globe! These people are the epitome of “a bastard family” ! But, oh boy, are they generous and, my goodness, do they give !
By Eric Golliher6 years ago in Families
Jade The orchid
T oppled over in Pain, Jade cried for her mom, her mother did not know what to do for her. All she could do was console her and rub her back and stroke her hair gently to bring her some comfort. Jade had been sick for quit sometime with a rare type of cancer. it sliced through her body like knives day in and day out she was in pain, barely able to eat barely able to walk, and it pained her mother to see her like this.
By zaire baker6 years ago in Families
Rest stop angels
At a rest stop off of I-95, I learned men don’t seem comfortable with a woman in the men’s restroom. I don’t know what I expected when I entered while helping my dad inside, but I figured we’d mostly be ignored. After all, there was nothing really to see. Just a short half-Filipina woman helping her tall, ailing, confused, Caucasian father inside.
By Kerry Eldred6 years ago in Families
*NSYNC + 13 Year-Old Me + An Angel
Family vacation. In my early teens, my father had a questionably luxurious job which allowed him to travel for work. As he loved his family more than anything, this gave us the grand privilege of tagging along a few times. (We were homeschooled)
By Jeremy David Witt6 years ago in Families
The Joy's Of Uncertainty
I use to wake up every morning and before I’d leave for work I’d always look at the news. I knew I wasn't going to see anything that was going to make me happy. But I felt it was important to develop my understanding of the world in order to be a better part of it. I would see people both locally and around the world who were stricken by poverty, not by their own decisions, but by the time and place they happen to be born. The only real difference between the kinds of people who have had to live their lives starving and freezing and myself, In my comfortable, normal, first world life, is the lives that we were born into.
By Tyson Rich6 years ago in Families
Pomegranate
Jemima was 10 years old and could not remember a moment in her life when she had not been hungry. She knew her father worked hard to earn money, but she also knew that not a lot of it made it into her mothers worn leather purse, so there was rarely much food on the table and her two older brothers were quick to grab what there was. When she tried to fight them for her share, her mother stopped her saying that the boys needed it more than they did as they must grow into strong men, girls shouldn't eat too much anyway, no one wants a fat wife. After helping her mother clean the kitchen Jemima would lie in her bed telling her rumbly tummy to be quiet as she imagined the delicious meals she would make when she was a grown up and never have to share.
By Rebecca Speirs6 years ago in Families
