My parents tell me to stop bringing misfits home.

Stray cats, lost dogs, lonely people.

Anything sad in the neighborhood, sad in my sight, I bring home with me.

The poor teenagers up the hill, the stoners dazed by the lake, the girls with broken souls and the boys with broken minds. Survivors of all kinds of abuse find refuge with me.

I carried an orange cat home one day, I found him walking around a construction site. He was fed and given something to drink, and we found his owner.

A puppy only a few weeks old, eyes still closed, deathly ill. We bottle fed it and took it to the vet, but it was too late. She said she had a damaged spine and wouldn't make it. I stroked her head as she stopped breathing.

I brought a schizophrenic boy home and helped him through an attack in our living room, while my parents sat horrified in the kitchen.

No less than three girls have cried on my shoulder in the safety of my bedroom, traumatized by rapes they didn't know how to talk about.

These strays, these wounded souls....These are my people. I love them all.

So when they say "stop bringing such damaged things home" it breaks my heart.

And I do it anyways.