Healing Stories
All of Us Have a Story to Tell
These personal accounts provide a source of inspiration and hope to others. If you would like to share your own healing story, please submit to Healing Hamlet.
Bloom
Taryn Davis And as the light continues to creep in, amongst all odds and obstacles, it grows and grows, closer and closer to the surface. I‘ve had a fascination with the lotus flower for quite some time (and actually wear a pendant of it around my neck daily). I …
N is for Normal (NO!)
Tammy Petry Normal is subjective. Normal is relative. Normal is something I hope I’ll NEVER be. Normal is one of the worst names you can call me. To me, normal is boring, conformist, and un-original. It’s everything I AM NOT. Some people spend thousands of dollars and countless hours of their time trying to be …
Milestones Occur Every Day!
Julia Fox Garrison Fifteen years ago today, I narrowly escaped the Grim Reaper’s scythe. Every year since, I have marked this day as a ‘Homage to my Hemorrhage,’ celebrating the gift of more time here on earth. Originally, I thought of this year’s anniversary as a milestone, but in reflection, I realize that every day …
I Knew You Before You Told Me
Michelle Martinka From the moment she was born, I knew she was different. Adelaide Eileen was born at only 18 inches, with my button nose and crooked pinkies. What she was born without was what caught my eye. 27 years ago I came flying into this world with a shock of dark hair, flailing all …
Letter to My Daughter After Watching “The Bachelor”
“Whimsy Ma” Janice My sweet Belle, I sat and watched a show the other night where a roomful of beautiful women competed with one another for the love of a man. I watched the drama as they quarreled, manipulated, flirted, cried and triumphed, but all I could think about was you. I saw your fresh …
Making a Difference, Step by Step
Elizabeth Givler Photo by USFWS/Southeast If I could make a difference in your life…. These were the words to my son’s solo in his last chorus concert as an elementary student. (Sniff, sniff.) And boy, has my boy made a difference in my life. I can’t imagine my life without him. First of all, it …
Shipwrecked
Emily Ruth In my early teenage years whenever I was bored (and attempting to avoid homework), I’d sit at my family’s communal computer and wait for the animated screensaver we had installed to pop up. Sometimes I would let a good half hour slip away watching a shipwrecked, disheveled cartoon man fighting to survive on …
What Does It Mean To Survive?
Kara Swanson We hear the word all the time. In this brain injury community, especially, we toss it around and heap it and don it. Survive. Survivors. TBI survivors…. I was wondering how it is that so many of us feel so blessed and gifted of this life after injury while so many feel so …
The Rising of the Sun
Michael Yoder In the AIDS world, we may spend time thinking about illness, loss, treatments and doctors and completely overlook the wonders that are all around us. The universe is a magnificent place. What is there not to celebrate? One of my closer friends lost a friend to cancer on Halloween morning. …
Omertà
Marc-Antoine Fontenelle Six years have already passed. Six years during which she made a vow to this code of silence. If in Sicily, one does not speak of the crimes committed by the mafia, a code known as omertà; here in my house, my mother never brings up the terrorist attacks committed by those deadly …