An Unexpected Therapy
By Betty Lane Almost every morning that I stand in front of a mirror to cleanse and moisturize my face, then apply some kind of make up, I cannot help smiling, as I think, however fleetingly, about my unorthodox start as an independent beauty consultant and what that business decision has meant for me and my family through the past many years, despite the fact that ultimately working towards realizing my potential and achieving my dreams led me in an almost altogether different direction. Until 1998, I was known for my remarkable ability to bounce back from suffering, big obstacles, and tragedy. I had survived childhood neglect and abuse, having grown up with ...
April 10, 2013My Grandmother’s Eyes
By Beth IIiff My grandmother’s eyes were a deep shade of mossy green. Like the ivy climbing up her back gate. Green as the pine trees that covered the mountain where she lived. Or as green as the jade turtle she always carried in her purse. My mother’s eyes are just like my grandmother’s. And mine are just like my mother’s. I would sit between them in Grandma’s old pick-up truck. Three pairs of green eyes sparkling as we laughed and bounced down the mountain road into town. “You hold this fella for me,” Grandma would whisper in my ear. She would slip the turtle from her purse into my lap, “We’ll be ...
April 1, 2013The Gilded Cage
By Seema Chatterjee The pigeon waited impatiently in her gilded cage. She paced up and down, squinting in the sunlight, as the gold bars of her nest, alchemized to a burnished bronze. Glancing at her watch she sighed. Where was the baron her beloved crow? Where was her loved one? Orchards of mandarins, oranges, grapefruit and lemon, loomed before her. Listlessly, she sipped on some water, longing for a piece of orange to suck on. Her eyes scanned over bushes of hawthorns and hickories, high bush blueberry, wild grape and honeysuckle and her mouth watered uncontrollably. Did she dare to step out just for a bit? She could ...
March 15, 2013Two Ounces of Purring Resilience
By Marla Morrow McMullen Our most humbling lesson in resilience began on August 2nd, 2010 when my husband Bob called from work saying he found a newborn kitten that had been abandoned by its mother. One of his co-workers was willing to take the kitten but didn’t have the time for the constant attention it would need so Bob and I agreed to raise the kitten until it was old enough to go to his new home. The army depot where my husband works is teeming with wildlife such as cats, mice, snakes, coyotes and hawks. Bob couldn’t bear the thought of a newborn kitten being nourishment for a wild animal ...
February 1, 2013Friday the Thirteenth
By Tiana Ferrante Hurricane Charley, I hated you. It is fitting you came on August 2004, Friday the thirteenth. I solemnly watched the television as the eye, the most powerful part of the hurricane, neatly rolled over my innocent Florida town, Punta Gorda. Numb with the colorful pictures on the TV, especially that cool, hypnotic, swirling thing I saw, I little thought of it as I sat on my aunt’s rug in Jupiter, Jupiter, Florida, that is. I was not expecting anything extraordinary, in fact, I was paying more attention to the car ride than to the destination. Then, they took me to the house, on Tripoli Boulevard, after finding it by ...
January 15, 2013The General
By A & M Fuentes There is nothing as deplorable as riding the public transportation around this crazed, sprawling city. If you manage to decipher the cryptography of colored lines and numbers on the bus schedule brochures, I am certain you could also become a successful mathematical analysis or a respectable forensic linguist. Just to be clear, there is no reason why you should even trust those flimsy pieces of propaganda they call The Bus Schedule — all the buses arrive when they are good and ready, and that could be an hour from now, or three. Once seated on the bus the overwhelming odor of human run off, bitter sweat, musky ...
January 1, 2013The Magical Woods
By Veronica Oniro “She may not make it through the night. The next 24 hours will be the most crucial and if she makes it through, she still will not be out of the woods for quite some time after.” Those words resonate in my head almost 35 years after they were said. Within a period of just one week, my sister went from a ten year old little girl playing outside, to laying in a hospital bed fighting for her life. This was the first of many uphill battles she would have to fight. Within the first twenty-four hours of being hospitalized, she was diagnosed with a very rare disease called Wegnersgranulomitosis, a ...
December 16, 2012When the People Cried
By Hazel Wesson-Peterson The journey was gruesome. To think of it is sometimes more than I can bear. Most every night when I close my eyes, the pictures in my mind are those of the tragic sojourn the People made during the autumn and winter months of 1838 and 1839. Oh that all Americans would come to know and understand what really happened and be forever changed by the truth. The day began like any other. Up at the break of dawn and out the door to milk the cows. Even though Father and I pretended to be bored by this morning ritual, we enjoyed our time together, taking in the smells ...
December 1, 2012A Life Well Loved
By Shirley Dilley It would never be the choice for me. The medical and religious communities felt it was the right thing to do, but their string of reasons made me even more resolute in my decision. “Your thyroid cancer has spread to ten lymph nodes.” The surgeon appeared stricken. It seemed he was delivering the message to himself rather than the patient sitting in front of him. “You will need a radical neck resection placing you under anesthesia for seven or eight hours. The four month fetus you’re carrying could be severely deprived of oxygen during that time so a therapeutic abortion is recommended. Otherwise, you could be delivering a child with ...
November 21, 2012My Journey of Growth from Abuse to Achievement
By Lainey O'Brien “Now what?” “What am I going to do?” I have no college degree, no money, and a broken down car with a recall involving “The car could possibly catch on fire when the key is turned in the ignition!” I was definitely in a situation that I had never expected, and I had no idea how I was going to survive. A few days before, I had packed up as much as my small car could hold including my yellow Labrador and left my abusive husband. When my husband and I had married nearly five years ago, we had the perfect wedding with the perfect southern reception site—an antebellum ...
November 19, 2012