What Is Required with Goodbye?

I am familiar with goodbyes. I said goodbye to my innocence at 4-years-old. From ages 4 to 12, I buried my voice in an effort to extinguish the ongoing abuse and survive. By age 13 I had learned that my sadness engendered pity and my sexuality, attention. Male parents for whom I babysat groped for…

Read More

Grace Is the Way

She looked at me with tears in her eyes, as if she was seen for the first time. Between the tissue sopping up her wet face and deep sighs, she said, “I don’t know what I did wrong. I can’t escape his mental and emotional manipulation even though we aren’t even together anymore. I’ve been…

Read More

A Way Through

“97, 98, 99, 100.” I pull my exhausted, 8-year-old body out of the pool, and collapse onto the warm concrete patio. Through the haze of chlorine fumes and low blood sugar, pride at my accomplishment revives me. Later I speak to my father, who is on a business trip, “I swam 100 laps”, I declare.…

Read More

What I Didn’t Expect When I Was Expecting

“It is hard for you, little one,” said Aslan. “But things never happen the same way twice.” —Aslan, the Lion, to Lucy, the child, Prince Caspian, C. S. Lewis   Things never happen the same way twice, dear one. I am a thirty-one year-old woman (Jessie), I have been married to my husband (Mikey) for almost…

Read More