“Friends and family dropped off like dead flies. That’s when I decided I would become the jail wife who helps these inmates, not the cop-bashers wife who should hide with shame. We all make mistakes, these men or women were just caught.”
‘I became a jail wife overnight. I was judged and ridiculed for standing by a man who made a mistake.’: ‘Jail wife’ starts community to write letters to inmates, ‘I believe in second chances’
‘We smiled and said, ‘I needed this today.’ White cop and black man, we were both hurting. We walked around for an hour, just listening to each other.’: Police officer urges ‘we must build change together’
“I told him I wished I was the cop who encountered Floyd, because he’d still be alive today. I told him there are good police officers out there. But most of all, I told him none of that matters, because I was there to listen. Calvin texted me a few hours later: ‘I believe things happen for a reason. We should see each other again.’ I believe him. Today, I listened. And today, I gained an ally and a friend.”
‘I was on the phone, ‘Mom, his symptoms really concern me,’ He protested a bit. ‘Let me sleep on it.’ I held my dad’s hand while he died.’: Woman loses father to Covid-19, ‘I’ll never forget the nurses and doctors’
“’Cheryl? Your dad is not going to make it through the night.’ The Nurse Practitioner on the other end was out of breath. ‘How do I get my mom there?’ She didn’t know. I held my dad’s hand while he died.”
‘He said she got in her vehicle and got on her phone and pulled off to an area near the gas station. Within minutes, police cars pulled in and surrounded him.’: Woman recounts husband’s experience with racism
“My husband wanted to do me a favor one night when he got home late from work. While there, an older white woman was at a pump across from him and he noticed she appeared very nervous and stared at him. He was told he fit a description. They asked whose car he was driving. He was told he could not leave. He was told the description was simply a black man. He came home a changed man.”
‘We decided it would be fun to re-introduce Lizzie and Sam. Their enormous smiles are a direct result of Angie’s single act of kindness from 15 years earlier’: Mom of autistic daughter says, ‘we never know when kindness will come back’
“Angie confided, ‘Why don’t you take our appointment? I will call the doctor and set it up.’ The kindness Angie showed me when I was feeling such deep desperation has always stayed with me. They both shared a positive outlook on life which is contagious. Lizzie and Sam hadn’t seen each other in over a decade!”
‘My husband must jog in front of me, so people don’t think he’s chasing me. If we call the police, I must be the one to answer the door.’: Woman urges ‘we must amplify black voices’
“My husband is funny, thoughtful, nerdy, outgoing, caring, and sweet. Everyone who knows him knows this. But still, it could have been him.”
‘It’s safe to say I lived. But I never lived the way he did. How could I hate him for flying without me?’: Woman says lost love ‘made me stronger despite the hurt’
“The moment I met him, I felt like I was living my life too. Truly living. Maybe he did what he had to do. I had no control. I had no hand to play. Sometimes you lose, like I did when he ended the game.”
‘I was starting to struggle. I was afraid to drive, fighting to stay awake at the wheel. Something had to give.’: Sleep-deprived mom switches to night weans, ‘I was happy to breastfeed again’
“My whole family was paying the price. I began to struggle more with anger, anxiety, and depression. I had to get more sleep. I was happy to breastfeed again.”
My Husband Got Pulled Over For Being Black
“No ticket, no explanation. They just assumed because I had a big black guy in my passenger seat, I was in danger.”
‘Our new normal needs adjusting. Extend your arm; we cannot continue to settle for convenience.’: Woman urges ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’
“Every day feels more like 1955. But now, instead of writing about it in history books, we pick up our phones and tape it. We drop a heart reaction and get on with it. Another hashtag nobody prepared us for.”