Memoirmonth Stories

Here is the story I put up for memoir month. Enjoy!

A story of a young girl who found happiness but ended with a broken heart. (Based on a true story) © Schuyler Gabrielle, 2014. All rights reserved. *BOOK COVER: @eclectic_

A strange light in the sky. Strange lights in my bedroom. Weird hovering machine noise above my house. These are just a few of the strange things that have happened to me. This is a simple excerpt from my mini-memoir, In Case I Die--a book I wrote to help people realize that strange things are not that uncommon, and that the world is much more interesting than we think. We'll know and understand this better so long as people start sharing their stories. I hope you share yours!

A short story about a girl I met in Istanbul.

I rode the elevated train in Chicago to my first job just west of the Loop. Waiting on the platform by the Merchandise Mart for the train home I saw her, a vision. After a number of sightings I worked up the nerve to talk to her, and ask her out in my bumbling way.

Dating back in college was a horror for an overweight girl. Guys chose the skinny girls over the fuller-figured ones any day, and getting a date for an event became a nightmare. Never mind that I was on the Dean's List, never mind that I was the editor of my college newspaper or that I was a published poet, never mind that people complimented my taste in clothes or that I always had a smile on my face. Forget that I made sure I was always up-to-date on the news so that I could converse on just about any topic. None of that mattered on date night. The same young men who asked for my help in Composition and Rhetoric or Advanced Statistics didn't know I existed when they were looking for someone to ask out for Friday night. They gave me a casual "Hi" as they passed me by on campus or in town on a weekend evening. They were looking for a hot date and I didn't qualify. To make matters worse, my female friends were all thin girls. One girl in my dorm who was slender and gorgeous had allergies to many different foods, so she had very little choice in what she could eat. I started wishing I had allergies. This poor girl literally couldn't eat, and I envied her.

Once upon a time...I believe it was a Tuesday when I caught your eye... She never thought an innocent crush could ruin her life... Ever since Nick broke up with her, her life has been turned upside down. Even her friends...have turned their backs on her. He broke up with her in February...through another girl...over text. Kevin, her crush, is the living definition of mixed signals. Constantly being put down for the 5 years she's liked him. Have you ever just had enough of everyone..? People stopping at nothing to make her regret everything...even life. All thanks to Nick. So dear whoever's listening... I am documenting how my life got turned upside down... This is my life...or part of it anyway. Dear whoever's listening, Thank you for listening to my story: the real story. This is the true story. What Nick Carter really did to me.

''Free as a bird'', is a phrase I have always loved...watching them soar in the sky gives me a feeling of liberation which I have always wanted to achieve!

'Why did you leave me? Why did you get messed up with all of those drugs? Why did you kill my brother and sister? Didn't you love us enough?' Nikkia Roberson has been asking these questions for most of her life. But how else do you cope when your mentally ill mother has killed your little brother and sister by scalding them with boiling water? This is a harrowing true story of how one little girl endured the most tragic of childhoods. But it's also the ultimate tale of forgiveness. Follow Nikkia on her heartbreaking journey, as she attempts to find answers and rekindle a relationship with her mother behind the gates of a secure psychiatric hospital. Deeply moving, Mummy is a Killer proves that love really is the strongest emotion of all.

Ross Macdonald--the pen name of Kenneth Millar--is widely considered one of the greatest crime novelists of all time. His Lew Archer series, which ran for nearly thirty years from the 1950s into the 1980s, broke new ground and influenced many of today's best mystery writers. In 1980, I went to California, wanting to meet Macdonald (and secretly hoping he would take me under his wing). Things did not quite work out that way, as you'll read in this memoir, written three years later when he died of Alzheimer's disease.

Laureen Kristine Hanson was a simple girl who had everything her heart desires. Her friends that are always there to support and help for her, her family that is always there to take care of her, and her first love and dearest friend, Jeffrey, that's always been there to cheer her up. But what if one day, someone suddenly came in and take away all that she had? Her friends, family,...EVERYTHING, even her first love. Will she still be able to find the courage, hope and strength to take back what was originally hers? What about her friends? Will they be able to support her throughout their lovely friend's suffering and torment? More importantly, will she and her love still have a "Happy Ever After"? Or is that happy ending doomed to only exists in fairytales and novels? Votes and comments are greatly appreciated!