Today, after an 11 month tour of duty in the Army, my husband has been home from Afghanistan for 9 days. During a heavy rain storm this morning at 4AM, following a loud crack of thunder, my husband jumped out of bed, half asleep, and onto the floor and screamed, “Get down! Get down!” MMT

Today, my platoon leader pulled me to the ground just as a hostile I didn’t see began firing his weapon. A bullet passed through the top of my helmet, less than an inch from the top of my skull. Tomorrow my 4-year service term is up. MMT

Today, as I showed her the scars on my arms and fought back my tears, I told her, “I hate myself sometimes.” And without skipping a beat, she leaned forward, kissed me on the lips for the first time and said, “Well I love you.” MMT

Today, when I told my mom that I could never forgive my dad for what he did to us, she said, “We must forgive him, honey, for us, for our own peace of mind. Forgiveness is not saying, ‘What you did to me is okay.’ It is saying, ‘I'm not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.’” MMT

Today, my grandfather told me, “Stop talking about what you have done or what you are going to do. Just do it and let your actions speak for themselves.” MMT

Today, my autistic little sister spoke her first word at the age of 6 – my name. MMT

Today, my 26 year-old brother, one of the quietest and most introverted people I know has been the best man in three friends’ weddings. MMT

Today, one of my teachers ended her own life early. It came as a huge surprise to the entire student body. She was a usual student favorite and she always left post-it notes with sincere, positive remarks on student’s assignments, even if the quality of the student’s work wasn’t perfect. I wish we all had returned the favor. She will be missed dearly. MMT

Today, my sister got married. As I was sitting at the reception, looking around, I realized that none of her bridesmaids were friends from high school or college. But my sister was ‘miss popular’ in both high school and college. I was always the quiet girl with the same three friends, and I still am. I got married last year and my three friends were my bridesmaids. The four of us still hang out on a regular basis. MMT

Today, my little brother is a 17 year old high school senior, a star athlete, has straight A's and gets scholarship offers every day. What all of his peers don't know is that he does all of this while battling lymphoma. His positive energy radiates around him everywhere he goes and you could never tell by interacting with him. His bravery, strength, and courage MMT.

Today, three full years after his passing, my son’s Facebook wall still receives at least a few comments every day from friends telling him how much they miss him. I wish he had known how much people cared before he decided to jump. MMT

Today, I woke up from surgery to find out that the surgeons had to remove both of my ovaries due to infected cysts. I never really thought about having children until now – the moment I no longer have a choice. MMT

Today, I stopped on the side of the road to help an elderly man who was struggling with changing a flat tire. It turns out he was the firefighter who pulled my mom and me out of our burning apartment when I was a kid. Even though I hadn’t seen him in 30 years, it only took me a few seconds to recognize him. We chatted about it for awhile, and then as soon and I had the spare tire secured on his car, we looked at each other, shook hands and said, “Thank you,” simultaneously. MMT

Today, my grandmother and grandfather, who were both in their early 90’s and married for 72 years, both died of natural causes approximately one hour apart from each other. MMT

Today, my father had a serious heart attack in the waiting room at the hospital as my wife was giving birth to our first child. My father was waiting to welcome his first grandchild into the world. The doctors say he likely would have died if he wasn’t already at the hospital with medical care a few seconds away. But based on the lucky circumstances, he’s expected to make a full recovery. MMT

Today, when the creepy looking guy in the black coat finally caught up to me on my walk home at midnight, I spun around and pointed a bottle of pepper spray at his face, but at the last second realized he was holding out my wallet. “I’m sorry, ma'am!” he screamed as he shielded his eyes. “But you dropped this a couple blocks back.” MMT

Today, I realized that a month ago, on the night my best friend died in an accident while driving to a pub downtown, the text I meant to send her inviting her to a small party at my house in the suburbs never sent properly. MMT

Today, as I was preparing to pay at a toll booth, a driver next to me accidentally pulled into a closed lane, so I stopped and gave him enough room to pull into my lane. When I stopped at the window to pay my toll, the toll attendant told me the gentleman in front of me had paid for me. MMT

Today, after sitting on the sidelines for two full seasons while he recovered from a serious neck injury, the school’s medical staff finally cleared him to play in the season opener of his senior year. But he was on the field no more than 10 minutes when he was tackled hard and had to be assisted off the field with a severely sprained knee. I spoke to him later, expecting him to be in poor sprits. But he did nothing but smile through our conversation. He said, “My doctors told me I’d never play again. Those 10 minutes were pure magic.” MMT

Today, I witnessed a bad car accident at an intersection. An older drunk male with no headlights ran a light and hit a teenager’s car. The drunk driver’s car caught fire. Then the teenager, covered in blood, struggled out of his car, jogged to the burning vehicle and pulled the drunk driver to safety just before the cab of the vehicle burst into flames. MMT