Iowa Mom's Temporary Sanity

Saving Elvis - Cindy Miller 2/19/19 August 16, 1977.  That was the day I was finally going to climb my Everest!  So what, I was only 10 years old and the baby of the family, but I was smart and I had a plan! Few things brought me greater joy than the attention of my father.  In my eyes, he was a giant of a man and I watched him doing so many things with my older sister and brother - from building go-carts, fishing, stock car racing, to tobogganing down the biggest hill in the county.  Although I was only a year and nine days younger than my sister, I always felt so much younger.  I was treated younger.  If all three of us kids had a cold in the winter, I was the only one made to stay in and watch all their fun from inside the house.  Running from room to room, looking out all the windows so I could track their movements, I felt sad and almost "fragile".  Was I a sick child?  Did I have a disease I hadn't been told about?  I really di...

The Road to Empathy February 17, 2019 An empath takes on the pain and suffering of others.  Empaths can't bear to see anyone in pain for that would mean feeling it and living it. I remember many times when the suffering of others became my own.  I was the tender age of 10 years old when I first watched the mini series "Roots" by Alex Haley with my dad, mom, sister and brother.  As I watched the men and women ripped from their families being whipped and beaten, I looked around my childhood living room.  I couldn't understand what I saw... or rather didn't see.  As I felt the stinging of my salty tears coursing down my winter-chapped cheeks, down my neck and under my sweatshirt, I noticed no one else in the room was crying.   Quickly and quietly, I escaped the fortress of uncrying eyes into my bedroom where I buried my sobs into my pillow.  Those tears would not be lonely long.  Each night as the mini series continued on our only...