We were the best of friends. Inseperable. We could finish eachother's sentences. I spent every weekend at her place, sleepover 3 nights in a row. She had a friendly, round face, freckles and clean, long, blonde hair. And eyes that brewed ideas of imaginary places and perfectly characterised...  read more

Dory gazed happily on a scene that she would never witness again.  Around the dinner table gathered her father and mother, her brother Bennie, her Uncle Peter, and her Aunt Anna Lee.  Her father’s gold wire-rimmed glasses framed his merry eyes as he gazed from one face to another....  read more

OK, you might think that for a girl, it’s getting your period or needing a training bra. For boys, well, maybe it’s wet dreams.  I’m not a boy, so I can’t really speak to that.  But for me, it came much earlier.Yesterday, at the hardware store, I watched two litt...  read more

Note: I have revised this story in several ways based on my parents' more accurate memories of this difficult time.The day I turned eighteen, January 3, 1984, I came home from school imagining that we would celebrate my birthday that night.  Whatever the celebration was would be low-key, but...  read more

All my aunts were very good to me, but I had a favorite aunt, my dad’s oldest sister.  She was quite a character.  She smoked like a chimney, and was quite tall and heavyset.  I’ve heard many stories of her being quite the tough girl when she was in school.  She ha...  read more

I must have been about six or seven.  My favorite aunt was over.  She was a talkative woman.  I was listening attentively to whatever story she was telling.  But then she dropped the n-bomb (translated for the uninitiated – used the word “nigger”).  I wa...  read more

The Letter “D” can mean many things.  It can mean you’re failing.  It appears twice in the word “dead”. People use it in emoticons.  Notice that the letters ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, and ‘E’ rhyme.  Perhaps if ...  read more

My new stepmother worked hard to win my love.  She was a therapist, so she probably thought that she had it all figured out.  But she’d already made the first mistake and lost my trust.  She started a project with me.  She’d gotten a big cloth map of the United Sta...  read more

My dad was going to marry again after institutionalizing and divorcing my mother when I was three.  I had lived apart from him with four different families after he'd had my mother taken away.  The first two families had been close friends of my dad’s.  The third and fourth...  read more

When I was 11, my parents told me that I would be getting a baby brother soon.  I was thrilled and a little nervous.  I was not sure what it really meant for me.  My mother’s belly swelled, a daily reminder that my life would change in unimaginable ways.  Then I caught a...  read more