Carol McClain        @carol_mcclain   My roofer-brother-in-law flew four hundred miles to my house to put on a new roof. As a single mom with only my salary as support, his help was critical. He had one day. Of course, that day threatened rain. The wind already picked up and promised to deliver what the weatherman predicted. This couldn’t …[ read more ]

Carol McClain       @carol_mcclain The elders in my daughter’s church handed out rocks. These weren’t pretty, soothing objects like worry rocks or quartz or painted ones with happy messages or water-smoothed pebbles. Each was large enough to hold but oddly shaped and rough. The pastor instructed us to hold the stone throughout the service. Being the obsessively …[ read more ]

Carol McClain     @carol_mcclain Have you ever wondered if your life mattered? If you made a difference. I taught for over thirty years. Never was I nominated as teacher of the year. Maybe once someone put my name in for teacher of the month. Without accolades, life went on. Sometimes I overachieved as an instructor. Sometimes I …[ read more ]

Carol McClain   @carol_mcclain With childlike faith, I decided I would write a novel about a paramedic. I naively researched the profession and assumed I had the correct information. I wasn’t so naive as to think it was perfect. During this time period, I wondered, too, if I was called to write. I belonged to a floundering critique group …[ read more ]

by Carol McClain      @carol_mcclain   Fifteen fourth graders crowded my classroom eager to make a stained glass heart. I gulped. Fifteen nine-year-olds. Then I stopped breathing. Fourteen active, normal nine-year-olds and one older, disabled child. How can the teacher instruct him along with all the others? I exhaled and breathed normally. In one day I had to send …[ read more ]