Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

The rain comes down harder as I write. It sheets off the roof in torrents. I wish it would pound against me. Pound the life from my body. The flesh from my bones. The pain from my heart.

For the first time in a long time, he didn't think of the past. And of all the things he'd lost. He thought only of the present, and what he had. And how it was so much more than he deserved. And he prayed then that he would never, ever lose it.

My father had put these things on the table. I looked at him standing by the sink. He was washing his hands, splashing water on his face. My mamma left us. My brother, too. And now my feckless, reckless uncle had as well. My pa stayed, though. My pa always stayed. I looked at him. And saw the sweat stains on his shirt. And his big, scarred hands. And his dirty, weary face. I remembered how, lying in my bed a few nights before, I had looked forward to showing him my uncle's money. To telling him I was leaving. And I was so ashamed.

Make them care, Mattie,' she said softly. 'And don't you ever be sorry.' -Emily Wilcox

One expects decent people to stand up for the good of all. Decent people shut their doors and hide behind them as decent people do. Massacres could never happen if it weren't for decent people.

I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.