Stories by Donna Marie Todd

If you've lost power in a storm or found yourself in a state of depression, you may have found yourself sleeping more. I've been sleepimg more after the difficult death of my sister. Winter is a time for rest. Perhaps tonight you should nourish yourself with a warm bowl of soup and a long winter nap. It's a beautiful way to take care of you!

Christmas is a celebration of a homeless birth. Here's another story about another homeless birth and some questions we all need to be asking about when babies will be entitled to a safe home.

Sometimes our vision, opinions, and judgment, becomes clouded. It's amazing what a fresh look at life can to help us see clearly again! As a new year begins, let's try looking at one another with a fresh set of eyes, and look for what we have in common instead of what divides us!

I'll never forget what happened in the Zickafoose sisters cabin the Thanksgiving day the moonshiners arrived. Once you hear this, you won't forget it either. 

I lost my husband when our son was newly sixteen. His birth was relatively painless, since it was a C-section. (The recovery from surgery, was not much fun, but epidurals are pretty amazing things.) But I just delivered the placenta. This is the story of a mother's love and the length of time it often takes us to finish birthing our children.

When you get that call that someone is dying, you leap in the car and go. Death doesn't keep an appointment book and cancer plays by its own rules.

The catastrophic events of climate change (like hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods) force you to abandon your sense of safety.

I remember writing a report in 3rd grade on the reason for Thanksgiving. Mine was a little different than Tommy Spencer's. But then, I didn't dress up in a headband with a rooster feather in it either.

No matter what is happening in the world of man, nature has her own rhythm. Something amazing is often right in front of us, but in our rush to "accomplish something" we miss it. Take a break to listen to this story about just such an almost-missed opportunity, and then take a break to walk in nature and see what she's up to. What you find is likely to delight and surprise you. And, who can't use...

Have we gotten to the point where our lives are for sale? 

It feels like time is running out to do what we came here to do. How are you spending your days these days?

When you sell your house, it's a lot of change all at once. I've been finding hidden messages at the back of the sock drawer, flipping through memories from childhood, teen times, and adulthood. Memory after memory flashes from every corner, from every found item. Some of our memories are like life preservers, they hold us up when we're in deep water. But other memories speak to all that went wron...

I like to think of myself as discriminating (in a good way) but not prejudiced. But in today's times, it's important to think about how we contribute to prejudicial attitudes about other people based on political opinion or childhood conditioning.  This is the story of how I first met racism and the way that impacts my life today.

This isn't the first time America has had a housing crisis. A recent encounter with a homeless camp brought back a story about my great-grandmother. Twice widowed, she solved a problem for herself and for others. Maybe it's time to let stories from the hard times of the past inspire how we address problems today.

I think most of us worry about money more than we'd like to admit. No matter how much we have, it seems like it's never enough. But have we entered a time like the one that made my Grandmom put her money in the mattress?  Listen to her story, and mine. Maybe it's time to give that idea some new consideration.

With all the political huffing and puffing in advance of the 2024 election cycle, the big issues we face as Americans are, again, off the table.  Affordable health care, homelessness, food insecurity, mass shootings and more.  Social media is slicing and dicing us like a red tomato into little voting segments. We're being fear-mongered into seeing each other as dangerous. Is that the America you w...

God has a strange way of putting us exactly where he wants us to be. 

The formation of a human soul is complex business. As children we sift through ideas but also marinate in the stories of our family and the rituals that are passed down from one generation to the next. This is the story of one such formation.

After hearing a Easter sermon about "taking up my cross" I saw a cat torture and kill a baby bird. And thus my ministry to save the birds of Elm street was born.

Sometimes you meet the right one and the right one takes you on the ride of your life. 

I feel all caged up by winter, until I look out my window. 

I picked the wrong year to start coloring my hair. Over twenty years ago I waited 9 months to have a baby. Now I'm waiting to have a knee replacement and feel like I'm 90. Getting old is NOT for sissies.

New Year's Eve festivities in my childhood were exquisitely boring, the ones in San Francisco so celebratory I can't remember them, and then my husband rolled one in by having a massive stroke, but we won't dwell on that. You never really know your relatives until you spend the holidays with them. Here's an introduction to some of mine!

I wrote this for Appalachian Voice magazine many years ago. It's a story about a boy I knew back in the hills of West Virginia. If you're in need of a feel-good story this holiday season, this might just fit the bill! Merry Christmas from my heart to yours.

I never had a birthday party until I turned 25. Then gave myself one and never looked back!