Top Stories
Stories in Families that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
My Father, the Enigma
Two years ago, my father died. Technically speaking, his passing was sudden -- but if you ask me, he had been impatiently waiting for his final breath from the very second his mother had taken hers. He made it two years and one day short of her birthday, and I’m convinced he left so abruptly because he couldn’t bring himself to sit through one more of her birthdays without her. Cancer was what eventually took him, and true to form it was a very rare, aggressive, and difficult-to-detect manifestation of the disease -- only something obscure would do, after all, for the man who repeatedly claimed his diabetes was not real and, instead, must have actually been something that science had not yet discovered.
By Kristy Ockunzzi-Kmit4 years ago in Families
514 S. 6th Street, #3
“I like Jean’s version best,” said Uncle Jimmie. Aunt Jean had a gift for telling stories. They may have been filled with embellishments to brighten them up or exaggerated so the heroes became superhuman. I remember when she told us the story of Aunt Anne, who was being bullied every day by a slightly older girl. On the way to school, that girl would steal Aunt Anne’s lunch. My aunt would cry and go hungry. Then one day, she figured out how to stop this bully once and for all.
By Nancy Nason Guss4 years ago in Families
I Wish I Was A Twin
You may not believe it, but I remember sitting on those steps next to those rocks. I remember plunking those rocks into a puddle of water and my mother having to fish them out because that puddle of water was in the middle of the road in a little residential neighborhood in Poteet, Texas, about 45 minutes southwest of San Antonio.
By Ashley McGee4 years ago in Families
My Potential Problems with Parenthood
I think I’d be a good father. I’m worried I wouldn’t be. I don’t have any children yet, and I may never end up having any. Part of me wonders if that’s a good thing. And while I have a long and painful history of talking myself out of things I want because I fixate on the worst-case-scenario aspects of everything, my concerns about one day becoming a father are founded in rational thinking.
By Matthew B. Johnson4 years ago in Families
Shameless Things I've Done for My Daughter in the Kitchen
This How It All Started While growing up I ate everything that my mother prepared for our family to eat whether I liked the foods placed before or hated them. My father worked very hard to ensure that no meals were ever missed. Neither my sisters nor I ever told my mother what we wanted or what our preferences were. That was sometimes reserved for special occasions like birthdays. It was just customary to simply eat whatever was placed on the dinner table.
By Dr Deborah M Vereen4 years ago in Families
Moo Cow Henry
They say as we age we don’t leave our younger selves behind, but that the selves that we were just have layers of years and experience added to the mix. So when the 60 something women I knew in my 20’s said, ‘you know I don’t feel 60- I still feel like I’m 20 inside’' they meant the 20 year old still lives on just in an older body and with a little more wisdom. I recall politely validating their observation nodding in agreement, yet callously thinking they should look in a mirror.
By PK Brannon4 years ago in Families
Growing Up Overnight
I’ve often made the joke that I was born nearly grown, an old soul my closest friends call me. I remember laying in bed as a child trying to contemplate the meaning of life and death. I’m still trying to figure that one out. I always wanted to grow up in a hurry. I didn’t want to waste my time in elementary and middle school, I was wanted to start my career in saving the world. Looking back, I can better understand that way of thinking. In hindsight, it was because of personal heartbreaks from a painfully early age that had a much bigger impact on me that I am only recently realizing existed.
By Judith Jascha4 years ago in Families
Coming of Age in the 1960s
I was a late bloomer Baby boomer. Shy to the point of almost being afraid of my own shadow. The boys in my junior high school classes never flirted with me like they did most of the other girls. One of them, in fact, told me not to worry, I would "fill out" one day. It didn't make me feel any better.
By Linda Rivenbark4 years ago in Families
Candy Bars and Chemotherapy
I remember watching my father walk down the street, the bright yellow shirt with the solid black zigzag pairing perfectly with his bald head. An adorable Charlie Brown if there ever was one. He was laughing with my mother (who was dressed as Snoopy), watching my sister rushing ahead in a witch's costume as she darted from door to door. I had lingered slightly behind, trying to commit as much of the scene to memory as I could. After all, it was possibly the last Halloween I would get to spend with my father.
By Robin Laurinec4 years ago in Families
The Weeks of the Cult
A week before my junior year of high school I picked out the all-important first day of school outfit. The outfit that would set the tone for the rest of the year. Like, the effortlessly cool girls would look cool no matter what, but I really had to work at what and who I wanted to be. This outfit could make or break me.
By Maria Shimizu Christensen4 years ago in Families
