David Jolly, the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, does not need to be asked about U.S. President Donald Trump to distance himself from his former party and its leader.
© Rebecca Blackwell (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Courtesy of Valerie Cherry
This story is based on an interview with Valerie Cherry, 68, a clinical psychologist from Tampa, Florida. It has been edited for length and clarity.
My husband, Glenn, 68, and I were delighted when our first grandchild — a little girl —was born four years ago.
Our son, Jamal, is an only child, and we are a very close-knit family.
We rushed from our home in Tampa to help him and our daughter-in-law, Sierra, who had settled 1,000 miles away in Houston, with the demands of a baby.
Our trips lasted between a month and six weeks, and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the two cities.
We'd either stay with the family or rent Airbnbs to give everyone a bit of space.
Courtesy of Valerie Cherry.
It felt great to be hands-on and useful, especially because Jamal and Sierra work very hard in finance and forensic psychology, respectively.
Back home in Florida, though, we lived life to the full in our gated, suburban community. Glenn, a relief veterinarian, and I had meaningful friendships there.
We knew lots of people, particularly fellow alumni from our colleges in Georgia. There was always something going on, like book clubs and fundraising activities.
Then our grandson was born two years ago. We continued our long visits to care for him and his sister, flying between the two cities.
Soon after his birth, Jamal and Sierra approached us about what it felt like when we weren't there. They were a bit nervous and wanted to know whether we'd consider moving close by.
We were torn. As much as we wanted to be with our grandchildren, we valued our time in Tampa. Still, we started to look at places in Houston.
The trouble was that if we were to purchase something in Houston, it would have had to be in the suburbs. Traffic is terrible, so it would have been around a 40-minute drive to my son's.
Courtesy of Valerie Cherry
Another factor was that we didn't want to be tied down by taxes, insurance, and all of that in Texas because we didn't want to give up our home in Tampa.
I Googled other options and came across a building called Landing right in downtown, a little over 10 minutes from the family.
It was different from other arrangements because you could stay there for as long or as short a period as you liked.
We paid a membership fee and secured a two-bedroom apartment that was already furnished. The only things we brought were a couple of pots for the kitchen.
It now works out that we spend around seven months a year in Houston and five in Florida. However, the 4,800-square-foot house in Tampa is classified as our main residence.
The apartment is much smaller at 1,600 square feet, but we like it very much. There are two swimming pools in the building, playrooms, and a basketball court.
I feel like we have found a middle ground. We can spend quality time with our grandkids, especially when their parents are on a date or away for the weekend.
We're busy planning for Halloween this year as it's a big thing for us all.
Meanwhile, if one of the children gets a fever at day care or school, Glenn or I can pick them up. It's an extra pair of hands.
We haven't lost our identity now that we're known as Nana and Papa. We regularly fly back and forth to Florida to enjoy the company of longtime friends.
Our neighbors keep an eye on the house while we're away, too. It's reassuring.
I know we're privileged to be in this position, but it really is the best of both worlds.
The U.S. midterm elections will not only determine who will occupy the Congressional seats and governorships up for grabs in November. In several states, voters will also find ballot measures seeking to amend laws, approve tax changes, or add new provisions to state constitutions.
© Ryan Murphy (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
In a beautiful and vivid essay on home, time, and family, Diane Roberts reflects on the house that her parents built, and their family’s land in Leon County, Florida, to which she feels deeply connected. I especially love Roberts’s thoughts on a home versus a house—the latter is composed of construction materials, but “home implies a complex neural network of family association and feeling, layers of experience, a shared past.” Despite the tragedies the home holds, it is ultimately a place of memory and meaning.
Home and time are as tangled as the skunk vine and Confederate jasmine choking my backyard fence. I suppose that’s to be expected. My house holds our history and the indispensable relics of former houses, objects cherished by the now-dead: the tiny rocking chair my grandfather made for my mother when she was three; the 1960 TR3 in the barn my brother never quite got around to fixing; the two old rosebushes dug up from the Washington County farm, replanted at Great-Aunt Rilla’s house in Chipley, then dug up again and transported to our front yard. The house didn’t simply belong to us, it was us—our mother, our father, Brad, and me.
A Chinese man hired a Florida surrogate, then didn’t pick up his kids because of visas issues, sparking a custody battle that could upend the lucrative, largely unregulated industry. Emi Nietfeld spent more than a year reporting this rollercoaster of a feature. One particularly harrowing turn involves the father hiring people to retrieve the babies for him:
As the men continued knocking on her door, Simpson’s phone convulsed with notifications. Zhou messaged her nonstop. He called 53 times. “If you don’t give my babies to us, we have to report to the police. And you will be arrested immediately,” he warned. Then came pleas—or were they threats? “Think about your daughter,” he wrote, referring to Simpson’s 5-year-old. “I don’t think you want to have her be live without you for several years!”
Halfway across the world, Zhou paced in his apartment, chest seizing in panic. Over and over, he’d tried to explain his predicament to Simpson. He was still waiting for his visa interview; without her help, he couldn’t get his kids home. Running out of money and options, he’d hired the handlers as a last resort. Now, as his calls and messages went ignored, he feared she’d fallen in love with his children and would never let them go.
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