25 profound stories from 'Humans of Macomb County'

“I think a lot of people live on the borderline of racism. I work in a machine shop with about thirty older guys. I don’t think there is one bad guy in the group. You’d like them if you met them. All of them love their families. But I’d say that I’ve heard eighty percent of them make racist comments of some sort. A lot of the older guys drop ‘n bombs.’ But if a black guy walks up, they’ll be friendly. They’ll even go out to lunch with him and share a meal. I honestly don’t think they see themselves as racist. Every one of them will deny it. They’ll point to the black guy that they’re friendly with. They won't point to the things they say when he’s not around.”

“My sister moved in, her five cats moved in, and her ex-husband moved in. It’s driving me nuts. My sister watches those murder programs. And her ex-husband is Irish so he keeps talking about the potato famine. He loves that potato famine. Always the potato famine. And those cats. Little Louie is sweet, but the biggest cat looks like Garfield and won’t stop meowing. His name is Nitro. I’m trying to keep it together. I just picked up one of those positive thinking books.”

“My mom died of lung cancer on my sixteenth birthday. My birthday is actually coming up—this Saturday. Before she passed away, I was a good student and everything. I was probably going to get a scholarship for singing. But I stopped caring after that. My mom was my biggest fan. Even when she was really sick, she came to my singing recital in a wheelchair, with her hair falling out of her head, and she sat on the front row. I quit singing after she died. There was nobody to sing for anymore. My Dad raised us. And he was wonderful. You want to know how awesome my Dad is? He went to court and tried to legally change my birthday. Just so I wouldn’t have to go through it every year. It turns out you’re not allowed to do that. But he tried.”

“I’ve known since I was thirteen. It wasn’t a struggle for me. I didn’t question whether it was ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I just knew it was me. But I’m still completely closeted. I’m part of a very religious community. Even my choice to go to college was questioned. It’s seen as not trusting in God. If my family knew I was gay, I’d be cut off completely. Listen, they’re not bad. They aren’t bad people. It’s just what they believe. I’m not angry at them. I’m angry at the situation. If I choose to fall in love, then nobody that I’ve ever known will speak to me again.”

“I just think that people are looking to blame someone else for their problems. They’re worried about the wrong stuff. They’re too fixated on what other people are getting. I wasn’t able to go to college. My mom raised five kids on her own. I’ve had to work since I was sixteen. So I haven’t gotten to do all the things I wanted to do. But I’ve never complained. I’ve never been ‘too good’ for a job. I worked at Burger King. I worked at Walmart. Now I work at Chrysler. And I got promoted at all three places. I've never had a problem getting noticed. Managers notice things. If you don’t complain, and work hard, and pick up shifts, you’ll move up. So I don't complain. I’m twenty-eight now. I have no debt. Chrysler even has a program where they’ll pay for my college. I've got enough to help out my mom. I’m actually picking her up a new dryer right now.”

“This racial stuff to me is BS and I’m tired of hearing it. I have it made because I’m a white male? I’m prejudiced? That shit is long ago. Way long ago. Enough of it. It’s all the media. It’s all for ratings. It’s this false racial shit that they keep pumping into everybody’s head. They’re keeping everyone on edge. If there’s a police shooting—it’s white versus black. Always white versus black. Who cares about the facts? Race is more important. Watching the news, you’d think there was a race war out there. But then I walk outside and I just don’t see it. I hold the door for the black guy. He holds the door for me. I wouldn’t even know there was a problem if it wasn’t for the television. They need to quit making shit out of nothing.”

“My father was on strike one Christmas. I think I was six years old. And whenever the union was on strike, we’d go without. So there weren’t many presents under the tree that year. Dad explained to us that he was standing up for everybody, and that he needed our help. He promised us that he’d get us more presents once he got back to work. Then the night before Christmas, somebody broke into our house. They slit the screen on one of the windows and stole everything. I woke up to my mom screaming. All our presents were gone. But that ended up being the best Christmas we ever had. Because a few hours later, six guys from the union showed up, and they were carrying bags and bags of presents.”

“I broke up with my girlfriend this morning. We’d been together for three years. But I’m Catholic, and she doesn’t know if she believes in God or not. I wanted to propose to her one day. I think she’d be a great mom and a great wife. But I feel like this might be something we can’t overcome. I want to get married in a Catholic church. I want to raise my children to be Catholic. It’s important to me and it's something that we’d have to deal with eventually. So I didn’t think it would be a good idea to keep putting it off. But it really hurts to lose her. Both of us were bawling our eyes out. She was such a big part of my life. Every time something good happens, she is the first person I want to tell. And I do respect that she refuses to believe in something just because I do. But I don’t know what to do. I’m hoping God will give me an answer.”

“I thought we were happy. We had two kids. She was a great mom. But three or four years into our marriage, she started playing that Sims game online. You can be anyone in that game. She could be the perfect wife or whatever. She was always on that computer. Then she started playing this other game where you can marry, date, and screw people. All of it is fake, but people actually develop feelings for each other. In real life these guys are probably 450 lbs. but online they look like Superman. There was actually one guy that she called ‘her Superman.’ He even started mailing Superman trinkets to the house. She wouldn’t quit. I even tried to break her cellphone with my hand. I just wanted her to live her life with us. But we weren’t enough for her.”

(1/3) “I was nineteen. She was sixteen. Our dates were normally on Sunday. We didn’t do much of anything. We were conservative. I was a farmer. We weren’t those swinging type people. But every date was a little more cuddly. Then she took me to her senior prom. It was just ten miles from here—in Richmond. I was the only one there without a tuxedo. All those city folks didn’t know what to make of me. I can’t tell you when we fell in love. I can’t even tell you when I asked her to marry me. It was just natural. I think we were just sitting in the car and I gave her the ring. I don't have many big moments to share. We were simple people. They were all happy days.”

(2/3) “We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in Branson, Missouri. On the drive home, she kept telling me that we were going the wrong way. She was very insistent. I didn’t fight her. I kept letting her turn around because I knew that eventually we’d hit the main road back to Michigan. I knew then. Her father had dementia. And so did his father. So I knew what was happening. Soon she started forgetting names. When it started getting really bad, she wanted to walk away. She was always trying to leave the house. I’d have to lie in front of the door to keep her from going. One morning I woke up and I couldn’t find her. I freaked out: ‘Where did she go? Where did she go?’ I ran outside and it was totally dark. Down the road there was a streetlight. And I could barely see her—crossing the road. I ran and I got her. But she fought me. She didn’t want to come back home.”

(3/3) “I miss that we can’t go out and dance. Or visit other people. We used to volunteer at the senior center every Wednesday. She’d play the piano, and I’d turn the pages for her. The hymns were some of the last things she remembered. Music was her life. But one day she wouldn’t play anymore. And I told the staff that they’d need to find someone else. So we stay here now. But I don’t see this as a curse. It’s an honor. This is what the Lord has given me to do. She has served this family her entire life. And now it’s my turn to serve her. I might not have her mentally. But I have her. I can still make her smile. I can make bubbly noises, and blow on her, and she’ll smile. Every morning we’ll sit in this chair and we’ll cuddle until noon. I rock this lady more than I rock my grandchildren. She likes to slip her hand under my shirt to feel my skin. And she still likes to kiss. Every once in awhile she’ll reach up and give me a kiss. Sometimes she starts ‘yakking.’ She doesn’t say actual words. And it doesn't make any sense. But I never tell her to be quiet, because it’s better than nothing at all.”

“I work at a machine tool automation company. We build the machines that build the cars. High school wasn’t for me. I didn’t respond well to being lectured and having things jammed into my brain. So I started out sweeping floors at the factory, then I got moved into the saw shop, and now I do electrical installation. I’m up to $17 an hour now. And I’ve started studying PLC so I can move up even further. There’s actually a lot of opportunity in my field. There's not much competition. Nobody my age wants to do this stuff. They all want to go to art school or make video games or something. I think maybe it’s because too many people are being told to do whatever they want. Because no matter what you think you can be, there’s still gotta be people like me.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve owned a flower shop. I owned another store twenty years ago, but it went bankrupt. I was devastated. I’d just gotten divorced. I felt like a complete failure. For months I couldn’t even drive down the street where the shop had been. But one day a friend told me that I’d been looking at it all wrong. He told me: ‘You’re focused too much on the closing. Think of all the years that the shop was open. Think of all the jobs you provided, the flowers that you sold, and all the people that you served. You were open for twenty years. It was happening. And just because it didn’t happen forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t valuable.’”

“I fostered thirteen little babies in my life. It’s just a passion I have in my heart. Often they’d just come wrapped in a blanket. I could only foster one at a time because I had five children of my own. But one time a mother dropped three children off on my doorstep. She had just given them chocolate ice cream. I’ll never forget how the ice cream was dripping off their faces. Most of the time I’d only have the children for a few months. And once they were adopted, I’d never contact them again. But I often wonder what happened to them. Maybe we’ll meet again in heaven.”

“I thought I was going to work until I died. But they came in and told me that I was too old and that I didn’t know the computer. They thought I was obsolete. If that’s true—then how did I get so far without the computer? I’ve got that computer in my head. I can design the whole process. I can start with a blank sheet of paper and cycle the whole line: the robots, the tooling, everything. That was my life. At night when I go to sleep, I’m still building welding lines. There were only 1800 of us in this town that could do it. And each of us had our own style. People could recognize Norm Szewsky’s work. But you know what happened? They took all 1800 of our brains, and they put them in a computer. So now a guy who don’t know nothing can just press a button, and out comes a clamp. Oh well, I don’t really give a shit. I’m checking out soon.”

“If I think back, I get depressed. If I think ahead, I get afraid.”

“I feel homeless. Like this isn’t the place that I thought it was. I feel like I don’t understand where I am. Where we all are. Last week students started chanting ‘build the wall’ in the lunchroom of a local middle school. Some of the Hispanic children started crying. If you’re the principal-- how are you supposed to stop that behavior? If the president can behave in a certain way, how are you supposed to tell a child that it’s unacceptable? How does that hold up? It breaks my heart. I’ve had friends reach out to me. They’ve told me: ‘I understand the reasons that you’re upset. But those aren’t the reasons I voted for him.’ And I’m just starting to understand that. I’m realizing that a lot of people wanted change more than they wanted kids not to cry. We all have our own code of ethics. My bottom line happened to be tolerance. Their bottom line was abortion. Or the Supreme Court. I guess we all have the right to choose our own bottom line."

“Don’t get me wrong. I want everyone to get along. And I don’t want to sound racist. But they’re coming into our country. If you ask me, that makes them racist. There’s something going on with the Muslims. There’s something going on there. There’s a lot we don’t know about. They have a game plan. They want all the businesses. They want control. They want my grandchildren to work for them. I’m hoping he can do something about it. We need somebody to say no.”

“My grandmother got me a violin when I was thirteen. Whenever people were fighting, and I wanted to get away, I’d just go in my room and play. Sometimes I’d play for four or five hours per night. It gave me a lot of confidence. I started playing in front of the church, in front of the school--- it made me feel good about myself. But my mom struggled a lot. She made a lot of mistakes. She got in some bad relationships and we lived in a lot of different places. Sometimes we’d go weeks without having power. One time it got really bad and we had to start selling our stuff. She didn’t ask me to sell my violin. But we’d already sold our TV. And she just asked if I had any ideas. I ended up selling it to a friend for $145. I was really upset for a while. I’m a Christian, and God knew how much I loved the violin. So I was confused why he’d make me sell it. For a few months, I tried to keep playing in the music room at school. But eventually I had to stop so I could focus on paying the bills. I got a real job at the grocery store.”