In Others’ Words

When Ned was in Iraq, there was one thing I promised God: I will walk as long as I can walk, every day, up the hill, as long as Ned comes home alive. And he was three times in Iraq and he came home alive. So I'm on a mission. Sometimes I make that walk twice a day,...

Hey! I wanted to scream. Stop that! First, I wouldn’t. That would be dumb. That’s what they wanted. Second, I couldn’t. My heart was banging so hard, I couldn’t have gotten my mouth to work anyway. And the police guard was shoving me so hard, my floppy hat nearly...

The summer I was 13, I went to a religious camp, where we spent two weeks talking about Jesus and singing hymns. One night, we did an activity: We each took a piece of paper and wrote down the thing we were most afraid of. Then we put the papers into a big jug, and...

B’shert. That’s the Hebrew word for soul mate. The meeting, the melding. Soul mate, a lover. Soul mate, a friend. Someone meant to be in your life. As a news editor, I’d read an article in the Tampa Bay News and was writing a lead based on a piece that was...