My Mother's Family Were Full-on Irish Catholics

She Was Like A Butterfly, Full Of Color And Vibrancy When She Chose To Open Her Wings, Yet Hardly Visible When She Closed Them.

I Borrowed His Brightness And Used It To See My Way, And Then Gradually, From The Habit Of Looking At The World As He Illuminated It, The Light In My Own Mind Rekindled.

God Warns Us Not To Love Any Earthly Thing Above Himself, And Yet He Sets In A Mother's Heart Such A Fierce Passion For Her Babes That I Do Not Comprehend How He Can Test Us So.

All The Times, All The Very Many Times, I Had Been Forced To Thwart And Stifle My Own Nature Seemed To Gather Together Then, In That Hot And Dismal Corridor. I Heard A Rushing Sound In My Head And Felt A Pressure In My Breast, Like Floodwaters Rising Behind A Flimsy Dike. Before I Knew I Did It, The Soup Bowl Was Rising In My Hand As If Elevated By Some Supernatural Force. Then, Its Yellow-gray Contents Were Running Down The Nurse's Pudgy Face.

It Is Human Nature To Imagine, To Put Yourself In Another's Shoes. The Past May Be Another Country. But The Only Passport Required Is Empathy.