Katie Swift
Yesterday makes 2 years since Bobby was taken from us. So much has changed and yet the most important thing has not- Bobby is still gone. Last year our family (even the dogs) met together at his grave with gifts, a poem and a song. This year, we tried something different. We gave each other space...
I was driving down Stroop the other day when I remembered a time in my life that I thought I had forgotten. I was around 19 years old and I wrestled with depression, an eating disorder and my Nanny had just died. I use to take power walks around the neightborhood to make myself feel...
For me, growing up was a lot like the ocean. I was born and raised in Florida and the salty air still hangs in my memories. The waves were much bigger then. I can still remember… I am small and looking up. I am anticipating that which is greater than me. The foamy water breaks...
I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. I want you to know that it’s not personal. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you. There is so much that I want to say. I have met someone. Ok well technically I met Him years ago and He’s known me since, like, forever....
I once was afraid of the dressing room, the things I could not fit into. The lights, the mirrors, the mockery. A thousand girls made of magazines. A thousand friends with knives in their hands. A thousand sisters, a thousand demands. With shiny hair, poked out ribs and sunken in bellies. Staring, comparing they’d find me there and tell me:...
It was easy to see that cigarettes would kill me until I was nic’n for a smoke. And to have a candy bar until I was afraid of food and the sickening compulsion to make myself throw it up later. It was so easy to talk about how people are overmedicated until it was me...
I remember spending the weekend in the mental ward at Miami Valley Hospital. I was suicidal. And really it wasn’t like I had plans to kill myself…I just didn’t want to live anymore. So my doctor asked if she could pray for me and than I was admitted. The walls were padded and none of the doors...
I think the hardest thing is that no matter what I do I can’t make my my children happy. I try everything to entertain them: parks, pools, swing sets, popsicles, toys, gumballs, play-dates, preschools, you name it. It doesn’t work. They fight and they whine and they cry mommy mommy mommy. And I have a headache....
Faith feels. It’s not doctrine or theory taught in a fluorescent room somewhere. It’s not a quick fix for my problems, a medicine I can shove down my life, a simple slogan to cure my grief. It’s not the reason for war, to kill a man or to say that to my sister. It is...
When I was a little girl I did not have a daddy. I did not get spun or twirled and when I put on my pretty dresses I had no one to show them to. Now I am all grown up with a daughter of my own. And she has a daddy. And a lot...
Last thursday morning I was talking to my mom about all my plans and visions and great ideas. I have a new one about each week. I want to change the world and minister to all the people, And apparently, my mom does too. She told me something that just might change the world. Or...
My kids get hurt everyday. And they cry very loudly. They cry for their mommy and they cry for their daddy. Then they demand that we kiss it and make it all better. I am always amazed at the power of the kiss. We never grow out of pain. But many of us are taught...
Sometimes trusting God is like night driving. Moving through the darkness. Trying to make out the signs. With just enough light to see the road that’s before me.
“If you judge people you have no time to love them.” -Mother Teresa Grace begins in the mirror.
Want to stalk each other and pretend we're good friends? Me too!