I grew up without a hometown. As the eldest child of an active duty military pilot, much of my childhood was spent moving from state to...

Growing up, my parents encouraged me to pursue all the dreams I could think of. I remember my dad’s words that have always stayed...

As with everything in life, we plan ahead, and things appear to be completely fail-safe. But sometimes the unexpected happens, and it...

My mother used to say that struggle is a person’s middle name. People are always struggling, if not physically then for sure mentally...

Sadly, she wasn’t taught to make her own needs a priority in life. It was a product of the time, when sexism more avidly kept women in...

Nothing melts my heart like watching the little smile on a baby’s face. The clutched tiny hands, the feet kicking freely in the air—just...

I learned what it meant to survive at a young age. I waited patiently for my father to escape death, and from then on, I was determined...

I used to love watching my mom do her makeup. I remember how my mom would put me in a highchair when I was just about one or two years...

As the last born in a family of six siblings, I don’t remember much of my childhood until the death of my father in 1997. When my mother...

I grew up with a warped understanding of love and received little attention from my parents. I searched for affection all my life, but...

There were seven of us children in the family, and I was the fifth one. The life of our parents was one of compassion and giving...

It’s hard to close the doors to the past. Though sometimes, it is necessary to move on, because that closed door often opens another...

At 43, I’ve lost a lot in my life. I’ve lost homes, family members, and jobs. Though I lose things, I fight to gain back what’s possible...

Our favorite was hide-and-seek. We would hide in unconventional places like the fridge or dryer. My father worked in logistics, and my...

I had a normal, Catholic upbringing. My mother’s family was Irish, and my father’s family was Italian, creating a melting pot of heritage...

My father was never in the picture. He left my mother long before I could even remember. My mother had only an eighth-grade education and...

Motherhood was all I ever dreamed of while I was growing up. My boyfriends were all evaluated through the lens of whether they would make...

I was born with a birth defect that made one of my legs much shorter than the other. When people hear about this, they assume that I’m...

When both of your marriages end because of infidelity, it can be hard to trust that there’s honest love out there anymore. Moving forward...

Growing up in the dusty countryside of Kenya was fun and typical for girls of my age in the early 1990s. Life was blissful. Sometimes I...