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My Unbelievable Six Rescue Dogs
By Andrea Carr
 When I was around fourteen years old I lived in Sheffield, England. This is when I first started to rescue dogs. Along with my cousin, who was the same age, we would spot dogs that were being abused. I was given a little badge from the Royal Society of The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In Canada, I have still continued on with my animal rescuing.
Around the time my daughter moved out, my fifteen-year-old dog died. I called up a dog rescue group and told them I would be interested in adopting a small dog. I had a home visit done but didn’t hear from them.
Then one day, I received a phone call. They needed a foster home for a small dog. I agreed and they brought over a Yorkshire terrier. Read more
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How A Near Death Experience Changed Everything
By Eva R Marienchild
 For many of his 50-something years, a severely depressed Bill Smyth* was living his life as if it didn’t matter. “Looking back,” he says, “I don’t know how I kept going.”
In 2000, he and his then-wife lost a son who was less than a year old. As happens with many marriages where the loss of a baby is involved, the marital union came undone. “My ex said she was miserable having me around. She couldn’t look at me without seeing a baby,” said Bill. “In order for her to be happy, we parted. We’re still good friends.”
Talking about his son’s death still hurts, says Bill. “Joseph’s little lungs hadn’t developed. A decision was made to take him off life support.” He pauses, his voice far away. “The only time he smiled was right before he died. Then, he just seemed to relax and let go.”
That observation was a striking forerunner of what was to follow. Read more
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Detach, Survive, Thrive In My Marriage To An Alcoholic
By Linda J Riley
 The world of the non-alcoholic in the midst of alcoholic insanity is difficult. Many succumb to the insanity and become part of the disease itself, and others die from stress-related illnesses. But it is possible to survive. Once the non-alcoholic has learned the survival techniques, the next step would be thriving in spite of it all. It can be done. I am proof that it is possible.
One day I watched in horror as my husband, Riley, stood in the middle of the living room and spewed a stream of urine onto the carpet. Things had gotten bad, but I never imagined they would get that bad. Read more
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St. Francis’ Feline: A Miraculous Healing For Felix The Cat – Part Two
By Melissa Roberts
 My Felix the Cat wears a Virgin Mary blue collar with a St. Francis medal. She is a Franciscan kitty, though I am not a Franciscan myself. Felix and St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, have a special relationship.
In 2007, Felix lived in a small St. Louis apartment while I worked as a hospital chaplain. Used to being an indoor/outdoor kitty on the grounds of Mum and Dad’s small town Kansas Victorian house, Felix had trouble adjusting to her new home and lifestyle.
Felix wasn’t happy, and I wasn’t happy. Together, we journeyed through one of those chapters in life full of stormy uncertainty and misery, waiting for the sun. Read more
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Expert Series: ADD(Attention Deficit Disorder) Is Not Who I Am, It Is What I Have
By Brad Worthley
 I had a lot of friends growing up so I enjoyed school from the social standpoint. I went to all the sporting events and if there was a party within 20 miles, I was there. Scholastically, I struggled with my grades, so I was about a “C” student. Out of embarrassment, I masked my inequity from my friends, so you would be hard pressed to find anyone in school that did not believe I was an “A” or “B” student.
As I sat in classrooms, I would try very hard to pay attention to what the teacher was saying because I knew we would be tested on it, but I struggled with retaining the information. I had the same challenges with reading text books in class or at home, because as I was reading, my brain kept drifting away, and I would have to re-read the same page two or three times in order to understand it. Read more
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Reading: A Love Story
By Joseph Longo
 I did not come from a family of readers.
My parents were Sicilian immigrants. My mother read an occasional magazine, but she never read a complete book. My father was semiliterate. Though he bought the New York Daily News every day – mainly to see what horses won at the track.
My first reading memory was comic books. I collected them and had a towering stack in my closet. My hero was Superman. I read that many gay boys growing up in the fifties considered him their favorite because he lived two lives. I also liked True Crime and Classic Comics. As a teenager, I worked for an Italian grocer and spent all my money on comics. I waited each month for my favorites to come out. I still read comics, but now they’re called graphic novels.
My Aunt Josie was the only one in my family who was a reader. She is ninety and she still reads, mostly romance novels. In fact, she keeps a notebook of the books she’s read so that she doesn’t buy the same book again. Read more
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Standing In Line
By Liz Barney
 Standing in line at the post office was not my plan for the afternoon, and so when I found myself still shifting from foot to foot after waiting 20 minutes, I grew restless. Looking around, it wasn’t difficult to see the same feelings mirrored on my line-companion’s faces; wrinkled brows, tapping feet, bulging eyes, and sweat-drenched brows all seemed to cry out together, “Can we just be done already?”
The line had been moving along at a slow, but steady pace that resembled the sludge of half-dried concrete crawling down the spout of the mixer, when suddenly it came to an abrupt halt. “Lo siento, no hablo Inglés,” the voice faltered, apologetically. I silently groaned inside, as I watched the short little man with weathered hands and thick black hair try to negotiate some form of meaning with the clerk.
“If you don’t speak English, move,” muttered an older man in front of me, and several people nodded or smiled with their eyes in agreement. Read more
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Defining A New Normal Within Marriage
By Billie Criswell
 I was 18 years old when I met the man that I would marry, Daren. It was a casual evening with friends that found us chatting on a couch, pretty impressed with one another from head-to-toe. Even at my young age, I knew that this kind of love was different than I had felt before. It felt like magic from the very beginning. I remember having an “ah-ha” moment when I saw him: we locked eyes and I thought to myself, “This guy seems important to me in my life.” From that very moment, there was never another for either of us.
We moved in together after only 3 months of dating, and our ‘honeymoon’ period of the relationship abruptly came to a halt. Read more
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Expert Series: Loneliness: Our Greatest Fear And A Portal To Peace
By Joel Brass
 “When we are alone and quiet we are afraid that something will be whispered in our ear, and we so hate the silence and drug ourselves with social life.”
Friederich Nietzsche
As a psychotherapist for the past quarter of a century, I am included on a daily basis in peoples’ greatest fears. Which ones do you think are the most common? Which send shivers down our spines? If you think the answer is the fear of dying and death, I actually rarely hear that one. The fear of rejection? Now you’re getting warmer. The secret, private fear of feeling unworthy, inadequate or not good enough? This is one of the most common for sure. Read more
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Expert Series: Living in Your Top 1%: Five Questions to Live Your Best Life
By Alissa Finerman
 “It isn’t hard to be good from time to time. What’s tough is being good every day.”
– Willie Mays, baseball player
If a friend handed you a first class plane ticket to anywhere in the world, would you be clear on where you wanted to go? This is effectively what happens on a daily basis. Each day we are faced with a series of choices. Will we hit snooze, work out in the morning, meet a friend for lunch, or stay late and put in the extra effort on a project? We can choose a mediocre path and settle for the status quo, getting to work just in time for a meeting, or make small shifts in our mindset and take the time to prepare, think ahead, and be ready. Opportunity awaits those who are willing to take the next step forward. It’s a process, not magic. Read more
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Maggie Meets The Car
By William MacBride
 If you’ve never had a dog get hit by a car, you may not fully understand what it’s like. This can be as devastating an experience as if it were to happen to a child. This is a story about the time I learned for real how this feels, by experiencing it. My girlfriend’s dog, Maggie, learned how it felt even more directly. Read more
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My Unemployed Life: I Felt Emasculated
By Shane McConnaghy
 My name is Shane and I’m unemployed.
I’m one of the millions of people trying to find a job in a stagnant economy. As a former mortgage broker, I witnessed first-hand the collapse of the real estate bubble, and experienced the anguish of losing my job due to cutbacks.
At age 45, trying to find another job in the housing market was a study in futility and frustration. No one was hiring. Companies were letting people go, and not in the mood to take a chance on new hires.
Adding to my anxiety was the fact that my wife, Raven, and I had had our first child a year prior to me losing my job, and we now had another little boy on the way. Read more
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A Lump Of Flesh
By Dr. Manjiri Prabhu
 In India, (and perhaps all over the world) street dogs are at constant risk from humans in one form or another, whether it is starving to death, or being considered a menace or a parasitic nuisance in society. Either way, they are condemned to a life of misery and pain.
I would like to recount an experience, which completely changed me. Read more
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Black Humour And Other Happenings At A Jewish Funeral — Part Three
By Diane Schachter
 My dad’s funeral was on a Monday in 1996, in Winnipeg. It was a graveside service on an overcast fall day. I didn’t shed many tears at the funeral. I think that I had already said my goodbyes long before his burial. Still, as I saw my dad’s casket being lowered into the ground, tears trickled down my cheeks. In Judaism, the casket is minimalist and is made of cedar. No rich or poor in burial; we are all equals at death. Read more
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Love Led Me To You: An Abused Horse And Woman Save Each Other
By Narrated by Alan Thicke
 This is a moving and powerful video about how a woman and a horse saved each other. Phyllis becomes whole, overcoming her drinking while healing Shag-Ra, the abused horse. Shag-Ra answers the phone, takes stray cats for a ride, and Lip-Synchs to music. This first appeared on Animal Miracles narrated by Alan Thicke.
Click here to view.
Back to Stories
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Yes You Can!
By Michael W. Michelsen Jr.
 If Dick Hoyt is trying to guilt me into being a better father, I have to admit that he’s accomplished his mission very well. That’s not to say that I’m not a good father, I am, but if it came down to comparing the two of us, he leaves me in the dust. Literally. Read more
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