When I was very young, we moved from our home village to the capital city. Pretty long distance, moved a lot.

CW: suicide and depression

Two years ago, I was suffering from the worst depression I’ve ever had. It’s chronic. I am often suicidal. But the feelings still range in grey, almost never the far extremes. I’m like a battery constantly bouncing between 10% and 50% charged.

But some time in the summer, it was at 1-5%. I was barely hanging on. Some days I nearly broke and I actively started looking for ways to off myself.

Thankfully, I’d worked on building an action plan for the different stages of severity in my depression. One of the actions I was obligated (to myself) to do was ask for help. But even in my 30s, I never really learned how. I’d almost rather chew my arm off than ask someone to help me, with anything. And even if I really needed help I never know how to ask for it, or know what I need.

After some meditation, I realized I just wanted comforting words from people who cared. So I sent a message to my friend group, told them what I was doing through, and asked them to send me kind words in private, but like obviously how they truly feel, not just to stroke my ego. Be honest, be funny, if you care send me anything.

Crying just typing this out. The messages I received in reply… were everything. I got way more than I expected. Friends celebrated having me in their life. They called me funny names, like female goth Garfield. Some surprised me; one of my friends expressed that she thought I was so cool from the day she met me. My best friend’s was one of the best, it was just one line.

He said, “Happy you decided to let others be the kind of friend you would and have been for them.”

Our friends weren’t always curmudgeonly or stoic or anything, but in the aftermath of my request, people changed. Everyone started being much nicer to one another. We patched up old wounds. I’d say what happened was my friends started caring more for each other. It’s disgustingly cute. It melts my heart. My friends are the greatest people in the world. I’m furious that some people exist without friends like these. You deserve it as much as I do.

I am a father by choice, but I truly struggled as a parent for the first year or so of my first child’s life. I loved my son, in the way that I was absolutely certain that I would run into a burning building to save him, would gladly give my life to protect him, but I didn’t have that bond with him… if I’m being honest I think I didn’t truly like him during this time. It was more like a responsibility that I took very seriously than the kind of warm love that may be the ideal that people have in mind for how father’s feel about their children.

Once he had outgrown his crib, I decided to renovate a bedroom in our home for him. I painted, decorated, built furniture, and generally turned this room into a toddler’s paradise. It came time to let my son see it and my wife brought him to the room.

This child’s reaction was the most genuinely beautiful thing I had ever seen. He could barely form words at this age, but the sound of him shouting “Meees Happys!! Meeees Happppys!!!” over and over and screaming in pure joy as he explored this space was indescribable and will be forever etched into my heart until my dying day.

It absolutely took over my soul in a way that I can’t describe. From that point on I got it.

I tell this story to new dads in my life all the time because I wish I had known that I would get it eventually instead of feeling broken for the first 18 months of my son’s life.

I changed that day from a man doing his duty for his family to a dad and I never looked back.

My mom died 5 months ago from MBC at 62. I was fortunate enough to be with her for the last few days. My husband and I drove overnight to get there, my brother and his partner did the same. My father and my aunt and us all took turns sitting with her, caring for her, doing everything we could to surround her with comfort and love.

The night she passed, we were all in the living room, she was in a hospital bed at this point, and we were all seated around her, watching a movie. She had been unconscious for days at that point but, for some reason, I had this feeling that she was looking at me. Logically, I know she wasn’t and that she was unconscious etc. But it still felt that way and I looked over at her and no one else was looking, they were all glued to the screen, I’m struggling to explain this but it felt like for a moment, everything stopped and her and I were alone in the room.

I blew her a kiss and waved goodbye, it was such a tender moment and somehow felt so intimate despite everyone being there. No one else noticed, it was just her and I for that brief moment. We were close and loved each other a lot, imperfectly at times, but a lot. I’m so grateful for that memory.

She took her last breath about 30 minutes later. We surrounded her bedside, held her hands and feet, I stroked her face and whispered to her as she slipped away. Yet, it was that brief, time-frozen moment when it felt like we said goodbye to each other that really wrecks me and comforts me at the same time. I miss her a lot. Fuck cancer.

My wife was in labor for 39 hours after months of a difficult pregnancy. I love my wife more than any other human on this planet, she is my partner, my best friend, and my ezer. After watching her struggle through labor for so long, she finally gave birth to our daughter. The nurses took my daughter to the corner of the room and I felt so proud of my wife. I was also exhausted, emotionally and physically, and I was so worried about her that I just wanted to be by her side and tell her that I loved her and I was so proud of her. She looked at me and put her hand on my arm and said “I’m ok, go see our daughter.” It hadn’t even been a thought because I was just so relieved my wife was ok.

I walked across the room with the firm belief that my heart was absolutely full of love for my wife and I didn’t understand at the time how I could ever love anyone as much as I did her. I walked to the warming table and saw my little one laying on a small pad surrounded by nurses. I put my hand on the clear plastic side of the contraption she was in and she reached out with her tiny hand and grabbed the end of my index finger. Something happened. I didn’t love my wife any less, but suddenly it was like a big double door in my heart was thrown open and there was this new giant space to love more than I ever imagined possible.

The time passed, the doctors left, and the nurses left. Mom fed her and then as she passed out for a well deserved sleep, I sat in the corner with my little one in my arms. I stared at her and she looked back up for just a minute before falling asleep. I sat and held her quietly as she slept and stared out the window with a feeling that nothing would ever be the same in my life from that moment on.

I moved 560 miles a few years ago.

My grandparents both lived with us for most of my life. Over the summers when I was a kid, my brother and I would stay up late playing video games and my grandparents would sit in the same room watching TV. My grandfather would make fun of whatever my brother and I were doing. My grandmother would tell him to leave us alone. It was gentle fun ribbing all around.

My freshmen year of college, my grandmother died suddenly while she was visiting my aunt in California. I didn’t even know she was sick. It was such a shock.

My grandfather was devastated. He used to tell my dad “I had no idea how much I needed her”. He was diagnosed with lung cancer a month after she died. My parents and my aunts and uncles all took turns taking him to chemotherapy. We all tried to keep him going, but the dude had given up. He seemed like he didn’t think there was any point in going on without her. We all tried to raise his spirits so he could keep fighting, but he just didn’t have it in him anymore.

My sophomore of college, my mom would call me periodically and tell me “I think Dada is going to die today.” It happened so much, eventually it just became background noise to me. I was home on spring break, I went to see him at the rehab center and he was telling me he could see grandmother. Being 19, I figured he was just delirious from all the drugs. I went home and went to bed. Next morning, my mom called me and said “Dada got sent to the ER, I think today is the day”. He had been sent to the ER so many times at that point, I was kinda numb to it and I just went back to sleep. I woke up an hour later and got my brother “hey we gotta go to the hospital and check on dada”. No rush, very routine at this point.

We get there and the doctor wants to talk to my dad like asap. So I called him and told him the doctor needs to talk to you. My dad rushed over. Doc tells us my grandfather had a GI bleed but he was too frail to survive the procedure to fix it. So there was nothing they could do.

My cousin came after that. So we sat there in the ER for hours. Looking at the heart monitor. Watching it slowly count down from 100. It took hours. The four of us silently sitting there. None of us knew what to say.

As soon as the heart rate monitor dropped to 0, we were all in tears. Nobody could speak.

That’s the sort of thing I only talk about with people who have earned my trust.

One experience that I’m happy to share, however, is the best morning of my life. I met a girl who was way out if my league - I’m an androgynous looking lesbian who is far from pretty, and she was tall, feminine, and beautiful enough that she did occasional modeling work.

When we met I was living in a caravan in a friend’s back garden, it was squalid - mouldy and cold. She still lived with her parents, who were very loving, and their house always felt calming and warm, but there was no space.

Through a friend I found out about an abandoned house they’d spotted that looked in good condition, and on further inspection it was ideal - it still had water and power, but had been empty for a few years.

Me and her moved in there with basically nothing. She got a second hand bed for cheap, we cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, and I fixed the shower, all in one day.

I will never forget the feeling of waking up with her in my arms in our own bed, and knowing right through to my bones that I loved her completely. And she loved me back.

We ate cornflakes with room temperature milk in bed, and talked about how we could do the house up and live happily ever after. We talked about adopting kids, and how I’d get a steady job. We made love. We ate cornflakes for lunch too, because that was all we had.

It was magical.

Just over a year later we moved out of that house, going in the different directions that our lives were taking us.

I still love her with all my heart.

I moved to the NL from a poor country when 18 and my first job then was cleaning hotel rooms in Amsterdam. I had to take the train every day, for context I made about 550 euros a month (yes it’s way below minimal wage, it was a scammy company where the hours you worked were calculated based on how many rooms you cleaned and how much time they count for each, we were on 0 hours contracts).

The train for the entire month would have cost me something like 90 Euros if I recall correctly. I had discovered that since the trains were double deckers I could get on at 1 end of the train and watch which floor the conductor is coming on, then walk through the other floor to the other end of the train, repeat until I got off - so I could skim without a ticket.

It was often the same conductor on the same track and I assumed he was completely unaware of me, but one day I was so exhausted from work I missed him and he got to me and asked for my ticket - as you can imagine I couldn’t really afford the fine. I don’t know what he saw, but when I obviously couldn’t produce a ticket he said he just had to check something and basically dicked around for 2-3 mins occasionally asking me chit-chat questions until we got to the next station, then told me he has to deal with the station and he’d be back in a few mins for my ticket and winked at me. Obviously I got off and waited for the next train. I was very thankful and paid more attention going forward to avoid the situation again. Luckily my situation got better shortly after and I didn’t need to skim anymore, nor take that train.

About 2 years later I was doing well in life and was going back to the town I used to live in to meet a friend, and by luck the same conductor was there - I didn’t realise until he asked for my ticket. I repeated the situation to him to see if he recognised me and he said while he didn’t recognise me, but he remembered me. He said he saw me most days when I hid from him, but he also saw me looking beaten down, sometimes in my house cleaner uniform. He obviously couldn’t just give me a permanent free ride but he also didn’t have to run after me, so since I gave him the opportunity to turn a blind eye and it seemed like I needed it he did what he could so he wouldn’t have to fine me.

I thanked him (I was incredibly touched to learn how much he was doing for me, it wasn’t 1 time he was good to me, it was every time) and offered to treat him to dinner or drinks or something I could repay him with, but he just said he was glad to see I was doing better and to try and pay it forward if I can, said his goodbye and went on to work.

10/10 person.

Was a bit drunk, looking at old family photos with my mum and sister. Was suddenly overcome with emotion when I realised how much I truly love my family. I hadn’t cried in front of anyone for 30 years. Or even cried more than 3 times. We’re a pretty tight family, and given all the circumstances of our lives, we’re very lucky to have each other

There was this guy who started college when I was chairman of the study association for IT. He was a bit of a geek even by IT standards, but all in all okay guy who brought a lot of enthusiasm.

He was never really understood by his surroundings, had a tough childhood with some trauma. Went into special needs schools and working his way up to study IT at a good school. He was like 26 when he started, the more usual age being 18 or even 17.

He was of course always welcome at our study association and everyone accepted him for who he was. He ended up also doing board work for the study association.

Couple years later, I’d already graduated, we met at a general meeting for the association and afterwards he took me apart to say that he’d graduated. He said that it was because of me giving a speech to all first-years that he’d felt more or less at home, felt confident enough to join the association, found friends and that that helped him get his diploma. He said it was because of me he got where he was.

I told him it was not because of me. He got to college before even meeting me. I was just there along the way to nudge him, unknowingly, towards a group of positive people who were always happy to help.

He’d had tears in his eyes and I have him a quick hug. I then told him this study association did a lot of good for me too. Sometimes all you need to do is step into something to generate great change in your life.

The sheer amount of people that together protested against our government and the fascist here in germany. Just being together and seeing how many still stand up. I was not used to that nore did i expect it

Man on his deathbed that I’m not related to told how much they respect me as a person had me struggling holding myself together. Apparently I even struggle writing about it.

EDIT: By far not the most, but I thought it was worth sharing

I’ll have to dig it up again but it was a video with voiceover showing how a stray dog was burying her dead pup using her only her snout.

She dug out a spot gently using her front legs without kicking the dirt back, carefully placed the dead pup gently into the hole, and then slowly buried it by pushing dirt with her snout repeatedly until the hole was filled.

The voiceover was just explaining that dogs typically dig by kicking their front legs to launch the dirt behind them, and vice versa for filling holes by turning around and kicking in the opposite direction. But for the dead pup, the dog intentionally chose to use her snout to cover the hole.

It could have been any other cheesy social media forward, but it was pretty interesting to see how a mother dog treats her dead pup with respect and visual sadness in her facial expression.

The Wisconsin Act 10 protests in 2011. That was when newly-elected governor Scott Walker sprung a surprise bill to gut public sector unions. There were many moving moments: Protests of nearly 100,000 people at the State Capitol; the day that farmers brought their tractors for a “Pulling Together” protest; watching people on their hands and knees wiping down the stone floors of the occupied Capitol to protect them from winter grit people tracked in; seeing the board at Ian’s Pizza recording the geographic origins of donations to feed the protesters as it grew to include all 50 states, and then the world, even Egypt and Tunisia (the Arab Spring was going on, too).

But weirdly, the most moving to me was the day that the firefighters joined in. I was at the Capitol early in the protests, when it felt tentative, driven by the graduate student union, uncertain of wider support. Then word spread through the crowd: The firefighters were coming. This was exciting, because the Act spared public safety unions, so it didn’t directly affect them.

But, they didn’t just join the crowd. No, the firefighters came marching in the doors in formation, led by bagpipers making a glorious din, in full regalia, and carrying union banners. They stood at attention in the rotunda while the pipers played, and made goddamn sure that everybody knew that they were in this fight, including the governor and legislators who would hear it from their offices, and let it be known that they had the backs of the other unions. Solidarity!