• My Health Is Not Up For Debate

  by Sama Daga

  “Good morning, Dagas!” Dr. B. exclaimed, greeting my family. My family neurologist, Dr. B, worked with my mother to manage her stress-related migraines around the time I was born, and everyone in our family had grown to trust her. She was always happy, and usually it made me smile too.

• Listening to Love

  by Anonymous

  I realized I was unique when I was 4. Everyone else in preschool had two ears, while I had a left ear and a tiny bump on the right side. I didn’t understand why my mom carefully brushed my long hair to hide the little bump.

• More Than Just a Game

  by Ayah Al-Masyabi

  When I was 5 or 6, I played soccer for the first time. In a school playground, I found a soccer ball lying on a patch of dirt and started kicking it away from me, then running to retrieve it. I thought I was alone, but a few minutes later an older boy with ginger hair walked over and asked if he could play with me.

• Beautiful Now

  by Jaya Arellano

  I’ve always thought that I was too fat, in part because my parents told me I was. My sister was also “chubby,” and my mom encouraged me to get her to diet with me. She’d say, “Let’s get our summer bodies ready!”  

• More Than Surviving

  by E.G. Grodzki

  Being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at 3 years old meant I never knew a life without the disease. I thought my experience was universal until one day in the third grade. As my best friend and I ran laps during recess, I was stunned by her effortless endurance.

• Something Good Out of Something Bad

  by Janay Collins

  I don’t remember my first hospitalization. I was either too young to understand it or too high off the five milligrams of morphine. But for as long as I can remember, I’ve gone to the hospital for extreme pain about 10 times a year.