Hope

“Sometimes I wonder if this is all in my head, just a crutch to make me feel better.” My brother dug his toes in the dirt as we walked, the sun going down and kissing the top of the lake in [...]

I met a millionaire whose older brother was in jail for dealing drugs and murder. They had almost identical beginnings: they both grew up in the same battered woman’s shelter and mixed the [...]

Last Saturday in Orlando, the lives of 50 people abruptly ended. After the shooter had been taken down, first responders and EMS searched the club, attempting to organize the unimaginable [...]

I knew the dirty little secret. One of my closest friends sat stirring her Starbuck’s frap into mush. Tears gripped the corners of her eyes and a halfhearted smile forced through as she started [...]

I remember seeing the woman round the corner slowly and painfully and thinking to myself–thank God that isn’t me. I had cups of water and Gatorade in each hand, lending them to runners as [...]

I didn’t even know why I was crying. It had ended well. It had concluded like it was supposed to. Yet, with my knees pulled tight to my chest in the loveseat of my college apartment alone, my mom [...]

“If things are going to keep being this way, I just…I don’t know if I can…” Over six months ago, he ended up in the hospital, and he’s been there since. His health has been dripping out of him [...]

“The skin of my forearm rubbed so raw it all peeled off,” he said. “But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get up.” Ed slowly rolled the sleeve of his denim shirt back until I could see the [...]

The gym is a fascinating place during the month of January each year. Recently I enjoyed watching a young man use one of the machines in the gym like he was trying to start a lawnmower and jerk [...]

When you’re at a concert, you feel connected to everyone there–you love the same music, you wear the same clothes, you feel brave enough to talk to strangers you might never anywhere [...]