In 1997, I met a handsome and charming guy while we were stationed at Osan Air Base, South Korea. In August 1998, we were married, and the military relocated us to Virginia. We began what I’d hoped would be a happy life. We rented a townhouse, met friends and settled into being a married couple. […]
Mark walked into my life when I was a naïve, sheltered 20-year-old. He was exciting. He was daring. And he introduced me to unchartered waters. Abusive people can always identify the vulnerabilities in others that allow them to move in and take control. Mark found my feelings of missing something from life and a need […]
Red flags. So many red flags. I saw them but chose to ignore them. He studied me like a book and learned my likes, dislikes and traumas. He then used that information to create the person I believed was my soulmate. He was “saving me” from an already bad place and blinding me with his […]
My name is Sharita Cook, and I am the mother of seven beautiful children, which includes five sons and two daughters. I am the eldest daughter of Larry and Janis Burks. My parents were hard workers. There were five of us altogether, two brothers and two sisters. My mother was a chef, and also a […]
Photography by Brandi Stage Portraiture On June 3, 2021, Keli Mornay penned a diary entry begging God for the strength to go on. “I am done with having a full heart that I give to those that stomp and crush it,” she confided to her journal. “I don’t deserve any more of this, not another […]
