I sat in a tiny ball at my father’s feet, watching the sky, heart careening through my chest, waiting to hear the deafening crack of his rifle. I followed the…
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You sit up straight in the hard plastic chairs in the cold conference room waiting to meet your potential new foster daughter, absently rubbing your knuckles raw with your thumb.…
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On a bright Wednesday morning in March, we leave for daycare and work because that is what we do, even when we’ve spent the evening in Trauma One of Children’s…
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Image Credit: Irina Iriser For J I. when we leave you for the last time right away, we forget the look on your face, for fear of burning…
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Image Credit: Daiga Ellaby Before we met in person, we talked on the telephone, matching alto timbres warm in our ears. This was decades before you could spit in a…
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Image Credit: Emma Margraf I sat in a small and dirty conference room with a young mother and her lawyer for hours before she decided to sign away her…
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Creative Nonfiction / EssayFeaturedFoster Care: Everybody Likes a Comeback (But Not for These Kids)
Jane and I stood on the stage with the Governor at the annual ceremony for graduating foster youth going to college. There were maybe sixty of us in an auditorium…
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My friend Michele’s mother said I could stay with them for four days tops. “That’s it,” she said. Four days. She was moved by my plight, but scared of Mama.…
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It began with a photo album. Simple looking, but full of memories of a time buried in the back of my mind—an old wound picked open as I stared at…