A Lifetime of Good Loving

The actor Alan Cumming is not the man his father wanted him to be. Growing up, Cumming says, his father had specific ideas about how he should look and what he should do with his life, ideas he enforced with abusive violence. However, Cumming tried to stay true to himself: As a t ...  Show more

For most of her life, Kelly McWilliams has felt as though people aren’t seeing her clearly. Kelly is biracial, and she was raised to be proud of her identity: she grew up surrounded by African American culture and literature. But when she walks into a room, a lot of people percei ...  Show more

Dear Steve and Shirley, I’m a 62 year old widow and I live in the great city of Chicago. I was married for 34 years to a wonderful man and he died 3 years ago. Since then, I have secretly fallen in love with my 31 year old Godson. I know I should be ashamed of myself, but I’m not ...  Show more

On this episode of Our American Stories, Tom and Lillian Lyons married in 1946. They lived a long and loving life raising a family on the south side of Chicago. Lillian was singing opera professionally when she and Tom met, and it was her voice that first made Tom fall in love. A ...  Show more

Dear Steve and Shirley, I've been married for four years, but we have been together six years. My husband charmed me and I was head over heels in love with him. He was always considerate and very loving, but over the years he's become distant in everything that we do. He stopped ...  Show more

Dear Steve and Shirley, I'm forty seven years old and my husband is seventy four. I used to work for him and we became close over the years, but we never had any romantic interest in each other. His wife passed in 2021 from pneumonia, and I was there for him. I made sure he ate a ...  Show more