As a child, I was beat for my wrong doings and for my sisters' wrong doings. I never realized that I was abused... I just accepted myself as a failure. ...continued...

Thanks for reading my story... Here I am again continuing about my story... After the we try to get back our relationship there is so many changes... I dont trust him anymore and there is always a doubt when it comes to him... After that I tried to be a good lover to him but it our relationship didn't work anymore... I decided to break up on him... How many days I feel so missing him, but I continue forgeting the things that we use to do... I'm very thankful to the music that I want listen and because of that music i learn to let go everything about him... But when we see each other he ...continued...

By Chris Christodoulou &nb ...continued...

North Pole ...continued...

THE MAGNIFICIENT MENTOR The notice in the church bulletin read, “Anyone interested in writing, meet in room 312 on Tuesday night. Bring some writing to share.” My heart skipped a beat. I had prayed about how I might start to write about the experience our family had been through with our daughter and her spinal cord tumor. And now, here was an answer. I had written poetry f ...continued...

The Walk "Dad, can you wait for me to take your walk?" My seven year-old son was looking up at me expectantly. His eyebrows were arched over his brown eyes and his close cropped hair was sticking up in three different directions. "Can ya, Dad? Just fifteen minutes." I looked away from my e-mail and smiled at Eric. "Sure, but hurry up and get ...continued...

In amongst my ‘heaven-like’ existence, there was aching pain and anger and turmoil that was outside of my bubble, not even two steps away from me. To this day I cannot describe exactly what went on around me because I was too young to understand the reasons or the details. All I knew was that we had our patriarch and our entire household revolved around what he wanted and how he wanted it. I could not comprehend it because to me he was loving and yielding and I would never have been able to match the two personalities into one soul. But there were endl ...continued...

18 years later In February 2011 an Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron to pay some $17 billion in fines and punitive damages over the environmental contamination in Ecuador. Water is the source of life. Without clean water we can't survive. (Emergildo Criollo, leader of the Cofan people, Ecuador) Chevron, not surprisingly, said it would appeal the ruling, calling it “illegitimate and unenforceable.” Eighteen years before, when the suit was first filed in a New York court, Chevron fought to have the jurisdiction moved to Ecuador because the ...continued...

Climate change is real. It is the most urgent threat affecting our species. We need to work together and stop procrastinating. (Leonardo DiCaprio, Oscar winner for best actor, The Revenant, 2016) Indians and wolves are both beasts of prey, though they differ in shape. (George Washington) To the Great Plains Indians, nature was the center of our way of life. To whites, nature was the enemy to be conquered. (Dr. Leo Killsback, citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation) It ultimately matters a hell of a lot, regardless of whether or not you live in Fe ...continued...

~~In the Nighttime To the individual working in near darkness, the place felt like a basement at midnight, illuminated only by a dim light bulb at the top of the stairway. No. Better. It felt like a mortuary in the middle of the night, the perfectionist mortician preparing a corpse for a starring role at its own funeral. An undertaker is an artist, after all, who must exult in the unveiling of the handiwork—or creative artwork—as gawkers pass by the open casket. The lone figure’s grin appeared as grotesque as the thoughts in its wearer’s head, illuminated as it wa ...continued...

I was born in Torrance California April 14, 1956 to Clara Louise Bryce and Richard Dwayne Mouritsen if I remember correctly I was zero days old I was 10 lbs. 13 oz. and they took the picture of me that was hideous. I actually do have the picture somewhere and it ended up in my medical school yearbook and can be found there. It turns out that all babies look almost the same which biologically make sense since at about 12 or 13 weeks you can't tell the fetus of the human from the fetus of a chicken but as the tail reabsorb it starts to take on a more ...continued...

Recently I spent the day with one of my granddaughters. She’ll be a senior in high school next year. We spoke of many things, but one stands out in my memory. She told me of accompanying a friend to a Planned Parenthood facility. Her friend’s mother instructed her to go there to get a pregnancy test. I’ll let you hear the conversation we had. “Mandy’s * mother was out of town so Mandy asked me to go with her.” “Why didn’t she get a pregnancy test at the drugstore?” My granddaughter shrugged. “Her mom wanted her to make sure t ...continued...

Driving down the road on a beautiful pre-Autumn day, the large red sign catches my eye. "Estate Sale 50% Off"…. I am torn, yet curiosity draws my car to the curb. As an avid garage sale seeker, I often enjoy the victory of the bargains I find while rummaging through items no longer wanted by the owner. But the items of my garage sale victories are most often found outside on the hard cement driveway or garage…unattached to story, emotion or the life that shared its journey. This Autumn day I find myself entering the E ...continued...

I woke up this morning hoping to hear nothing other than the occasional stirring of our guides like in mornings past. Instead I was greeted with the sounds of an angry Artic wind. We are in a full blown whiteout and cannot move. The blowing wind fills the air with snow that smashes into your face. It's best described like you see if you are driving into a snow storm on the freeway. The kind of storm that cars pull under over passes for a little reprieve. Our sturdy little tent is our life source. We have to conserve fuel because there is no predicting how long we are here. So no stov ...continued...

I have been a certified nursing assistant (CNA) for the past 6 years. I have many responsibilities as a CNA regarding all patient’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being. I am expected to handle culture and religion issues with respect, kindness, and understanding. I have been in situations where my clients believes in a different religion then I do, and they contact my boss to tell them that that they don’t want me to be there caregiver anymore due to differences in religion. As a CNA I recognize and believe that spiritual beliefs are different, in which r ...continued...