| This is the 564th story of Our Life Logs® | I was born and raised in Las Vegas in the 1960s as an only child. I had a wonderful...

I remember washing my armpits in the sink of the bathroom at work, layering on the deodorant, all while hoping nobody would notice the...

For years, I had worked day and night for my sons to get the education they needed so that they could get away from their abusive father

Have you ever seen a potter while he’s at work? The exposure to the right intensity of heat for the perfect amount of time turns...

My mother had what some would call a “dirty” pregnancy, meaning my parents weren’t together and my father wasn’t in the picture...

Growing up, I saw thousands of faces in my town. I was born in Kasur, Punjab, in Pakistan. Kasur is a very small city...

But what I wish I didn’t remember— what I wish I forgot so completely—was my father’s drinking. My father’s hands as they beat me...

My wheels are a chariot to freedom rather than a temporary crutch to prop me up from the harsh aspects of society...

For as long as I can remember, it was always a constant battle for survival...hunger was our close friend...

I once met a woman named Mary, and Mary was quite contrary. She loved planting and making things grow. We met in LA, and ever since...

Sadly, every beautiful story is entangled with a monster. The monsters that haunted my life and broke my sweet laughter were violators...

I grew up making mud pies and racing as fast as my little legs could take me on my metal-footed pedal car. That’s what my early life...

It was odd to me how my mother married a man who didn’t seem to understand either one of us. Our passion, empathy, and sensitivity...

. My mom moved us to Detroit, Michigan where she later married her second husband, a man who, unfortunately, would beat her...

Lying in a steaming bath-tub, water lapped against my naked body. The pressure of the clear liquid surrounding me made the bruises on my...

My dad was always in my peripheral vision, but as a busy musician, he never really stayed long enough for me or my older sister to get...

This was the day I was born, miraculously, to a drug-addicted mother who couldn’t take care of me. I was born with fetal alcohol syndrome...

In 2008, my whole world imploded. Everything I thought was supposed to take place in my life, bar the details, was blown to smithereens...

I grew up in Arkansas in the 1970s, always searching for someone to love me like a father. My own passed away when I was just six months...

The sun flowing through the crack of the window was not able to warm up the icy cold that was invading me at every thought of my future...