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When kids are growing up, they often see their mother in one dimension—just “Mom”—without much thought for the life she lived before kids or who she is outside of that role. It’s usually not until we reach our own adulthood that we recognize, “OH, Mom is much more than just my mother,” and if we’re lucky, we then get to know her in a whole new light and celebrate all that she is.

Jake Bley is lucky to be getting to know and celebrate his mother, Nicki—but in a very different way than most people do.

Jake as a toddler and as an adult with his mom, NickiPhotos courtesy of Jake Bley

Nicki Bley was only 46 when she died after a year-long battle with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in 2014. Jake, one of Nicki’s five children, was in his early 20s when she passed.

“As a young mother, our relationship was closer to a friendship than a usual mother/son relationship,” Jake tells Upworthy. “I could go to her about anything, and she was always supportive…she was one of my best friends.”

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Shortly before she died, Nicki gave each of her kids a special gift. To Jake, she handed over her collection of handwritten diaries she’d kept from the time she was 8 years old.

“When she gave each of her children our gifts she was very sick,” he says. “But she told me she gave me the diaries and other sentimental items because she knew I would value them, and I could process her thoughts throughout the years. Get to really know who she was and value that. The good and the bad.”

“It has been 10 years since she passed, and I only started really looking at the items recently,” Jake shares. “It has been too hurtful to explore them until now. That’s when I found the little red Collins from 1989, the year I was born. From there, I flicked to the day I was born and that was when I saw her entry—’only a little fellow.'”

— (@)

Jake had been born prematurely, weighing only 5.7 pounds at birth, and Nicki had jotted “Only a little fellow” as a note beneath his statistics.

“The second I saw it I thought to myself, ‘Oh my god, these were her first thoughts about me,” Jake says. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

As part of his healing journey, Jake decided to tattoo the phrase on his leg, in his mom’s handwriting, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of her passing.

Since this has reached so many people, I wanted to update saying that I’ve started going through the note, diaries, documents and photos my mum left me. I found this photo of her and she was so damn cool. There’s so much to read and preserve.

(Sorry I’m a yapper) pic.twitter.com/LPiXM1bG0W

— Jake (@jakebley) June 28, 2024

“I took the day off work, very nervous, and I walked into a local tattoo artist studio with no booking,” he says. “Up until then I didn’t feel like I could commit. My tattoo artist Riley was incredible. I told her the story, and she took the 1989 Red Collins diary and copied the handwriting on to a transfer for the tattoo.”

“I love meaningful tattoos,” she told him. It was Jake’s first time getting a tattoo, but he says that all of his nerves instantly vanished when he saw the final product.

“It was perfect. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and it was a happy moment. When I got back to my car I cried happy tears, because for the first time in a very long time I was letting myself feel my emotions.”

He shared a video documenting the tattoo experience on TikTok:

@jakebley

TW: GRIEF. I know shes watching over me. #Tattoo #Grief #griefjourney ❤️

Jake says his grief over his mother’s death has been complex. “It’s not until years later that I started to understand the impact of losing a parent, and the need to not only experience, but feel my emotions,” he says. “Taking the time to rediscover my mother, and getting this tattoo a decade later has been part of my healing journey.”

Jake’s story has gone viral on social media, with people offering their words of comfort and their own experiences with remembering their loved ones, which has given a whole new dimension to Nicki’s legacy.

“It has been so wonderful seeing the love pouring out from the community,” Jake tells Upworthy. “The thought that 10 years on my mother’s handwriting, love and memory not only lives on but is celebrated by so many truly fills my heart.”

Tiffany Stratton held off Lyra Valkyria, Zoey Stark, Naomi, Chelsea Green, and Iyo Sky to win the Women’s Money in the Bank briefcase at Money in the Bank in Toronto.

Everyone left the ring right at the bell as Green stood by herself and tried to reach for the briefcase. She then took a ladder from Sky and tried to climb to win the match, then picked up the ladder and tried to knock the briefcase down before Sky hit a springboard dropkick on her.

Valkyrie was stopped climbing up the ladder and had her leg stuck in the rung. Sky tried to climb over her and got German suplexed off the ladder. With two ladders set up, Naomi straddled the ladders and hit a jumping DDT on Stark.

Outside the ring, Green and Stratton set up a slew of tables. Stark, Sky, Valkyria, Green, and Stratton all went at it in the ring with two ladders set up and two ladders set up on the ropes. Everyone took turns getting slammed into the ladders before Stark made her way to the top of the ladder. Sky and Stark fought over the briefcase before Sky dropped Stark onto the ladder.

Green climbed to the top of the ladder and had the briefcase before Stratton pushed her off the ladder through two tables before snatching the briefcase.

Damian Priest pinned Drew McIntyre to defeat him and Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship at Money in the Bank in Toronto.

Rollins and Priest traded shots to open the match, looking for the pedigree and the South of Heaven chokeslam, but neight could connect. As each found an opening, they looked back at the entrance ramp, distracted and continuously expecting McIntyre to make his way to the ring.

Rollins landed a suplex off the top rope and with Priest laid out, McIntyre’s music hit. McIntyre, who’d won the Money in the Bank briefcase earlier in the evening, made his way to the ring and cashed in. He took out Rollins and hit the future shock DDT. As he took out Priest and appeared poised to win the belt, CM Punk rand down and attacked McIntyre from behind.

Punk beat McIntyre around the ring, hitting him with a chair multiple times and wrapping a cable around his neck. As McIntyre made his way back into the ring, Punk grabbed the championship belt and hit McIntyre in the head.

Priest got to his feet and hit the South of Heaven chokeslam for the pinfall victory. After the match, Rollins made his way around ringside to yell at Punk, who stood up on the announce table and stared him down. Next up for Priest is a championship defense against Gunther at SummerSlam.

John Cena announced his WWE retirement tour after a surprise return at Money in the Bank in Toronto.

Cena was introduced by guest host Trish Stratus, who hit the ramp sporting a towel and a shirt that said the Last Time Is Now.

Cena grabbed the mic and spoke about how Money in the Bank is about opportunity and discussed his relationship with Canada over the course of his career. He then dropped the bombshell: His career in WWE is coming to an end, and while he clarified that Saturday night isn’t the end of his tenure, it’s coming in the next year.

He announced that when WWE Raw comes to Netflix, he’ll be part of that. He also announced that he’ll take part in the Elimination Chamber, Royal Rumble, and WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas for the last time in his career.

Cena’s retirement comes as no surprise when you consider the level of stardom he’s reached outside of the ring. It’s become commonplace to see him pop up almost everywhere — awards shows, movies, television shows, etc.

Cena is a 16-time World Champion in WWE and with his announced retirement, is expected to be heavily involved during WrestleMania’s arrival in Las Vegas next year. Cena previously said he expects to still be involved in some capacity with WWE in the future, but following WrestleMania next year, it seems safe to say he won’t be stepping into the ring to compete again.

Drew McIntyre fought off Andrade Idolo, Chad Gable, Jey Uso, Carmelo Hayes, and LA Knight to win the Men’s Money in the Bank briefcase in Toronto.

Early in the bout, McIntyre and Gable fought atop the ladder. Gable’s leg got caught in the ladder and Andrade landed a springboard leg drop. Andrade caught Hayes, who was attempting a springboard, and landed a Spanish Fly onto the ladder.

Gable took control and dropped Hayes with his rolling German suplex. Knight went at Gable and dragged a ladder to the corner, connecting on a neck breaker onto the side of the ladder. Hayes dragged Knight to the outside, who set up a ladder between the apron and the announce table. Hayes knocked him down back in the ring and attempted to climb the ladder before Gable stopped him.

Gable and Andrade went at it on the ladder before McIntyre took him out. McIntyre set up a ladder against the corner, then powerbombed him into it. McIntyre made his way to the top of the ladder before Uso stopped him. Knight connected on the BFT before Uso hit the big splash. Uso and Knight climbed to the top of the ladder and traded blows while reaching for the briefcase. Hayes knocked them both off the ladder, then hit a running senton over the top rope onto Gable.

Back in the ring, Hayes climbed to the top of the ladder. Andrade dragged Hayes off the ladder, then set up a ladder between the ladder standing in the ring and second rope. Hayes and Gable attempted to climb and meet Andrade at the top of the ladder as he hit a rolling powerbomb off the top of the ladder onto Hayes through a ladder. Gable and Knight fought inside the ring before Gable body to body slammed him over the top rope through another ladder.

Uso hit a spear on Gable and climbed to the top of the ladder to pull down the briefcase before McIntyre hit him with a ladder and a Claymore. McIntyre climbed to the top of the ladder and pulled down the briefcase for the win.

Azealia Banks‘ online commentary has become more popular than her past musical releases. The “Ice Princess” rapper provided her unwarranted thoughts on everyone from Beyoncé and Kanye West (Ye) to Tyler The Creator and Doechii. Detractors were hoping that after reports that Banks was evicted from her Florida home circulated online that she would take a brief hiatus from social media. But, that surely didn’t happen.

Instead, today (July 6), Banks took to Instagram to refute the paperwork floating around while encouraging others to folks to become legally literate before attempting to shame her. In a series of uploaded to her Instagram Stories, Banks detailed the legal matter with her landlord while posting documents of her own.

“It’s a lie,” she said. “I’ve always paid my rent. I’m not a gazillionaire, but surely Azealia Banks has $8,000.”

In a separate clip, Banks claimed that her landlord’s actions were seemingly an extortion attempt after they filed to manage the payments they received properly. Then Banks turned her attention to The Pop Tingz’s report. Banks rapper proceeded to post a snippet of the platform’s original upload on X (formerly Twitter), with the caption: “You girls really have to understand how to at least read a legal document.”

As of today (July 6), the case is reportedly still being reviewed by the Miami-Dade County clerk’s office.

View Azealia Banks’ posts below.

Most everyone has been in a situation once or twice where you look down at your ticket while boarding your flight to double check your seat number only to find someone already sitting in your seat.

Typically the person responds respectfully and with a slight twinge of embarrassment as their error is pointed out to them. It happens to just about everyone at least once. There’s no shame in accidentally sitting in the wrong seat.

But what happens when you notice someone sitting in your seat but instead of them excusing themselves from your space, they direct you to sit in their seat? Their middle seat. Unless your original seat was in the lavatory, there is likely zero world where being told to sit in the middle seat feels like an upgrade. There’s nothing wrong with the middle seat per se, but unless your seat mate is your partner, friend or family member, you’re squished between two strangers fighting for armrest space.

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There are all sorts of qualms people have about the middle seat. Having to step over someone to get to the bathroom, having other people step over you to get to the bathroom, someone inevitably falling asleep on your shoulder. The list could go on but it just comes down to comfort, which is why many people pay for a window or aisle seat. But it can feel like you’ve hit the jackpot when the airline seats you in a window seat without you having to pay an upgrade fee. That’s exactly what happened to this Reddit user.

The airline gods shone down on them that day and gifted them with a window seat that they were thoroughly looking forward to only to discover it occupied.

“It was an 8 hour flight, and I wanted to sleep with the wall support the window seat offers. However, when I get on the plane, a lady is in my seat. She says ‘oh, I didn’t realize. You can just sit here’ and points to the middle seat. I have a hard time with confrontation so I just accepted it. If this were to happen again, how do I respond,” u/Hairy_Visual9339 asks.

Commenters were quick to give the timid flyer advice for future encounters with audacity filled seat mates.

“No, that doesn’t really work for me. I’d like my seat,” one person quipped.

Another offered their own anecdote as a cautionary tale, “Made the mistake of not doing this on a train. Only one other person in whole carriage, of course it’s my seat. They have a laptop set up act like I’m being very unreasonable and so I sit somewhere else. Fine whatever. Four hours into 8 hour journey and the train is now complete full. I’ve been forced to move seats twice already, everything is booked and I’m some desperate, seat-less vagabond with nowhere to store my suitcases, wandering the aisles in vain, despite having a perfectly good reservation.”

When all else fails, tattle, “just say, “I’d rather have my window seat thanks.” and if that doesn’t work tell a flight attendant.”

“My response is always “oh, no thank you” and I just stare at them until they move,” someone shares.

Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you can’t tell another adult so they can fix the situation when your discontent is being ignored, in one person’s case, let the help come to you.

“Some guy tried to take my seat and stick me in his middle seat across the aisle so he could sit with his wife and teenager and I said “oh, no thank you. I picked this seat intentionally when I checked in”. He starts throwing a hissy fit, trying to get me to take his shitty middle seat and the flight attendant swooped in like a freaking goddess, and told him to move. He goes to the other side, still bitching, and banged his head on the luggage compartment so hard that three rows worth of people audibly gasped,” says a commenter.

A previous episode of “The Daily Show” addressed two hot-button issues at the same time: abortion and gun control.

It was one of the earliest tests for new host Trevor Noah, and he pretty much knocked this one out of the park. The segment began with a discussion about the pro-life movement’s laser focus on making completely legal abortions really, really hard to get.

Noah started with the movement’s push to defund Planned Parenthood on what turned out to be deceptive, altered, and debunked videos. And even he had to admit, pro-lifers are pretty great at what they do, given that they were able to get Congress to hold hearings based on … nothing, really.

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Of course, not all people in the pro-life movement are against gun control, and not all people who are against gun control are pro-life, but there is a certain significant — and confusing — overlap on those two issues that is worth investigating.

So Noah turned his attention to the mass shooting in Oregon — the 294th of the year — and how we as a country are once again discussing gun control.

If pro-lifers are so concerned about the preservation of all lives, Noah wonders, then why don’t they support common-sense gun control measures?

There’s no need for doctored videos. Gun violence statistics exist (and they’re terrifying). Imagine if the pro-life movement rallied behind that?

Noah then brilliantly compared reactions from two “pro-life” presidential candidates on the Oregon shooting and on abortion.

First up was Jeb Bush on what happened in Oregon. He urged against reactionary gun legislation. “Stuff happens,” he said.

But compare that to his recent comments on abortion — which is, again, totally legal:

Now that’s a response fitting for a mass shooting.

Noah looked over to candidate Carly Fiorina for her thoughts on the Oregon shooting. Similar to Bush, Fiorina cautioned against taking any action on gun control until we know more about what happened.

Now compare that to her comments on abortion:

It’s not clear whether pro-lifers are waiting for an even 300 mass shootings in 2015 — which, at the pace we’re going, should be sometime in the next month or so — before taking action. But in the meantime, it’s really hard to see the “pro-life” rhetoric as anything more than hypocrisy.

In closing, Noah posed this to pro-lifers: If you actually care about lives, do something about guns.

Redirect the energy, lobbying, and rhetoric spent on fighting a more than 40-year-old Supreme Court decision toward sensible steps to curb gun violence.

“They just need to have a superhero’s dedication to life,” Noah says. “Because right now, they’re more like comic book collectors: Human life only matters until you take it out of the package, and then there’s nothing left.”

Watch the complete segment in the video below.

This article originally appeared on 10.06.15

Anna Trupiano is a first-grade teacher at a school that serves deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students from birth through eighth grade.

In addition to teaching the usual subjects, Trupiano is charged with helping her students thrive in a society that doesn’t do enough to cater to the needs of the hard-of-hearing.

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A six-year-old child farted so loud in class that some of their classmates began to laugh. The child was surprised by their reaction because they didn’t know farts make a sound. This created a wonderful and funny teaching moment for Trupiano.

Trupiano shared the conversation on Facebook.

See posts, photos and more on Facebook.

While the discussion Trupiano had with her students was funny, it points to a serious problem faced by the deaf community. “I know it started with farts, but the real issue is that many of my students aren’t able to learn about these things at home or from their peers because they don’t have the same linguistic access,” she told GOOD.

“So many of my students don’t have families who can sign well enough to explain so many things it’s incredibly isolating for these kids,” she continued.

Trupiano hopes her funny story about bodily functions will inspire others to become more involved with the deaf community by learning sign language.

“I would love to see a world where my students can learn about anything from anyone they interact with during their day,” she told GOOD. “Whether that means learning about the solar system, the candy options at a store, or even farts, it would be so great for them to have that language access anywhere they go.”

This article originally appeared on 12.14.18

Imagine you’re working at a school and one of the kids is starting to act up. What do you do?

Traditionally, the answer would be to give the unruly kid detention or suspension.

But in my memory, detention tended to involve staring at walls, bored out of my mind, trying to either surreptitiously talk to the kids around me without getting caught or trying to read a book. If it was designed to make me think about my actions, it didn’t really work. It just made everything feel stupid and unfair.

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But Robert W. Coleman Elementary School has been doing something different when students act out: offering meditation.

Instead of punishing disruptive kids or sending them to the principal’s office, the Baltimore school has something called the Mindful Moment Room instead.

The room looks nothing like your standard windowless detention room. Instead, it’s filled with lamps, decorations, and plush purple pillows. Misbehaving kids are encouraged to sit in the room and go through practices like breathing or meditation, helping them calm down and re-center. They are also asked to talk through what happened.

Meditation and mindfulness are pretty interesting, scientifically.

Mindful meditation has been around in some form or another for thousands of years. Recently, though, science has started looking at its effects on our minds and bodies, and it’s finding some interesting effects.

One study, for example, suggested that mindful meditation could give practicing soldiers a kind of mental armor against disruptive emotions, and it can improve memory too. Another suggested mindful meditation could improve a person’s attention span and focus.

Individual studies should be taken with a grain of salt (results don’t always carry in every single situation), but overall, science is starting to build up a really interesting picture of how awesome meditation can be. Mindfulness in particular has even become part of certain fairly successful psychotherapies.

Back at the school, the Mindful Moment Room isn’t the only way Robert W. Coleman Elementary has been encouraging its kids.

The meditation room was created as a partnership with the Holistic Life Foundation, a local nonprofit that runs other programs as well. For more than 10 years the foundation has been offering the after-school program Holistic Me, where kids from pre-K through the fifth grade practice mindfulness exercises and yoga.

“It’s amazing,” said Kirk Philips, the Holistic Me coordinator at Robert W. Coleman. “You wouldn’t think that little kids would meditate in silence. And they do.”

There was a Christmas party, for example, where the kids knew they were going to get presents but were still expected to do meditation first.”As a little kid, that’s got to be hard to sit down and meditate when you know you’re about to get a bag of gifts, and they did it! It was beautiful, we were all smiling at each other watching them,” said Philips.

The kids may even be bringing that mindfulness back home with them. In the August 2016 issue of Oprah Magazine, Holistic Life Foundation co-founder Andres Gonzalez said: “We’ve had parents tell us, ‘I came home the other day stressed out, and my daughter said, “Hey, Mom, you need to sit down. I need to teach you how to breathe.'”

The program also helps mentor and tutor the kids, as well as teach them about the environment.

They help clean up local parks, build gardens, and visit nearby farms. Philips said they even teach kids to be co-teachers, letting them run the yoga sessions.

This isn’t just happening at one school, either. Lots of schools are trying this kind of holistic thinking, and it’s producing incredible results.

In the U.K., for example, the Mindfulness in Schools Project is teaching adults how to set up programs. Mindful Schools, another nonprofit, is helping to set up similar programs in the United States.

Oh, and by the way, the schools are seeing a tangible benefit from this program, too.

Philips said that at Robert W. Coleman Elementary, there have been exactly zero suspensions last year and so far this year. Meanwhile, nearby Patterson Park High School, which also uses the mindfulness programs, said suspension rates dropped and attendance increased as well.

Is that wholly from the mindfulness practices? It’s impossible to say, but those are pretty remarkable numbers, all the same.

This article originally appeared on 09.22.16