Tag: family

Even odds

“I’m sorry, honey, this isn’t your game. Why don’t you play with your toys, instead?” Stroking his hair, Michael’s mother ushered him inside.

While his six brothers made the school football team, Michael sat in the stands. He couldn’t play because his parents thought him weak. As he sat, his eyes tearing, his ice cream melting, Julia sat beside him. “Why are you upset? If not football, try out for baseball.”

12 years later, Michael entered the pitch to thundering applause. He was no longer the outlier—the child with the bionic leg had proved his parents —and the world—wrong.

No regrets

They had appealed for months. With Jack travelling most of the year and his partner teaching at a nursery, it took all their pleading skills to convince the adoption agency.

They discussed it long enough, knowing a lot would change if a baby came. Jack even worried they’d be bad parents because they seldom had time for each other. Could they raise a child?

That’s the reason to adopt, they concluded. They had drifted from each other, and a child would complete the family.

Applauding at her graduation, Jack and Mark realised adopting her had been their most prudent choice.

Life Without Meaning

Jason trudged home alone, head low, hands in his pockets. No one wondered where he was or where he went.

He wished he was slender as the others. Perhaps then he could match their pace as they paced in line. He was the biggest and oldest of fifteen children, and his parents hosted hundreds of relatives, seldom noticing his absence.

It was yet another of those days, and they had found sweet merriment without him. He went into his room and shut the door. He hated his existence. He wished he had been born human; being an ant seemed meaningless.