NewsBreak Original

Frustration, family messages, and thwarted communication. My mother has been in a nursing home for five days. Despite many daily attempts, I have not spoken to her since she landed in the facility.

My sister is a canine behaviorist. She currently works for a doggie daycare and has marvelous stories to tell. She was lamenting the names some people choose for their dogs. They named the dog Shazam!. The exclamation point is part of the name.

How I became a first-time cat borrower at six years old. Mom and Pop grew up wealthy. My grandfathers were doctors, and their wives were nurses. I grew up reading the Physician’s Desk Reference for fun.

Raising a daughter is hard. Though you may think that she needs your wife more than you, the truth is that you have plenty to offer your girl. In fact, there are many things that you can teach your daughter.

She was my mom but always my competition. Right before I turned 21 and got married for the first time, I remember going over details about the reception with my mother-in-law. I shared with her what my own mother said when I told her about it.

This article is written based on experiencing the loss of my Mom. I hope it helps others that have suffered the loss of a loved one. There is no manual on grieving. No guidelines to tell us how to get through, for many of us, the most brutal pain that our soul may ever feel. I can only speak from experience on the “do's and don't's” that helped me. I hope they help you too. After Mom left (yeah, seven years later and I still can't say the "d" word), and no, I'm not in denial, it's just that difficult to still say, even today, I totally lost myself when she left. Totally. My Mom was my center of gravity. Talk about reeling to and fro when you're knocked off your center of gravity, well, it was, for a lack of better words, ...unbearable. I have NEVER experienced such a magnitude of sorrow and confusion as I did when she left. Enduring her passing has been the worst experience that I can possibly ever imagine having to endure, next to losing a child. Anything and everything that has EVER happened to me outside of this arena have been a cakewalk. But losing Mom....

**This is a true story as experienced by the author**. I awoke to my phone’s blue flashing light in the dark of the early morning. My sister had sent a message. It contained no preamble and was straight to the point. The words seemed alive and had movement and power. The power to send my emotions into a tailspin. The power to forever change the course of my hopes.

**This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events that I have experienced firsthand; used with permission. Working in an office, you tend to bond with certain people that you work closely with on a daily basis. Over my twelve years working for one particular corporation, I became very close with one of my older co-workers.

A mom and her 19-year-old daughter shared that they shower together daily, and call it the ‘best way’ to begin their day. Mary and Brittani, who are from Jenson Beach, Florida, appeared on TLC’s sMothered and caught attention for their bizarre shower routine. The mother-daughter duo does everything together including shopping, undergoing cosmetic surgery, sleeping on the same bed, and showering together. In fact, Mary calls her daughter the ‘love of her life’.

**This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events that I have experienced firsthand; used with permission. My 10-year-old daughter hates having her hair brushed and styled. Always has. She couldn’t give a flying fig if her hair is knotted up in horrifying tangles.