Friends' and Family Members' Voices

Click on the title below to read stories from friends and loved ones - or click on the button above to submit your own.

Hey, Men -
If you feel the same way as this man does, would you please talk to the others for us?
Thank you.
http://www.upworthy.com/if-a-man-asks-what-women-have-been-asking-for-centuries-will-men-finally-listen?c=upw1

A Brother's Grief

Hello,

I need some help, or advice from someone and I don't know who to talk to. A few days ago it was confirmed to me that my stepfather abused his daughter, his real daughter, my stepsister. Apparently, I was in the home when it started, but I left for the military unaware of what was happening. While I served, the accusations were made and I did something I can't forgive myself for. I did not believe her. I didn't even do her the courtesy of questioning her. I thought about it a little, sure, dismissing it almost immediately as her deranged fantasy about this man who was great. He taught me how to fish and even adopted me formally when I was 12. He couldn't have done that.

It is the worst mistake I have ever made, and the worst thing I have ever done to another human being. All that and I did nothing to find out what really happened until this week. What does that say about me?

read more . . .

A Sister's Story
(she had to deal with her own brand of pain and fear, but she got her power back)

Just Under the Surface
(the pain is always near, but then, it could have been so much worse)

What You Don't Know
(a poem for feeling sorry for oneself)

Back to Voices

Home

Homecoming

I stood today at the top of the rise
    And the playa of my soul spread out before me
    In alternating bands of gray and green
    Delineating years both sere and ripe.

I surveyed them all, each one,
    With eyes burning and dry from years of
    Anger too bitter to cry about and
    Despair too deep to admit the light of reason.

My wings were the wings of archangels
    And my shoulders were too tired
to bear them any longer -
    They dragged behind me in the dust
    Trailing by one thin thread
lashed to my Achilles heel.

It was for me the end of war
   And in that moment I saw that I was home
   For the first time.
   At home in my own life.

And it was mercy, then, that brought the tears.

- Another Mother, 2013