Melissa Grove

Psychotherapist, public speaker, Kuchling Award award winner, Former Executive Director

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.

Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.

I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."

"They just come with the table, man."

They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.

This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.

I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.

"Did we…?"

"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."

Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.

My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."

Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.

I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.

Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.

I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.

Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

Excited to join the speaker lineup at #MDAEngage2025! I’ll be sharing insights
on Advocacy and sharing your story to effect change. Join us in Dallas. https://t.co/xC4R2u0knf Hope to see you there!
@MDAorg MDAEngage2025 #EngageSymposium

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@GregAbbott_TX I am disabled and need my husband to come in with me to help me on and off the toilet because I cannot stand on my own and transfer to my wheelchair. So now he will be a criminal?

[Anonymous @YourAnonNews]

The USA meets every single one of these conditions. Not just one. Every. Single. One.

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

#TwitPicForMark Sending mental hugs to everyone whose life was touched by Mark.

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@360vegasKeren @360vegas I can only imagine how shocked and sad you are right now. Please know there are so many people, from all over the world, whose lives Mark and you have touched. We are all keeping you in our thoughts and sending you strength for navigating the unspeakable.

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@maria48308 Dallas-10,000+

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@syrdon @FoxNews So do you think Trump is the father of IVF?

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

Voting should be accessible to everyone. Learn about your rights as a voter living with a #disability and discover how you can #AccessTheVote with #MDA this November! https://t.co/YoA0jgVb2D

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@WallStreetSilv Wow. You must really think she did amazing to say that.

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@elonmusk @CubanOnlyTrump Good way to hide small number of interested people

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@AmericaPapaBear @KamalaHQ This is a bot

[Melinda French Gates @melindagates]

I’ve never endorsed a presidential candidate before. But this year’s election stands to be so enormously consequential for women and families that, this time, I can’t stay quiet.

Women deserve a leader who cares about the issues they face and is committed to protecting their safety, their health, their economic power, their reproductive rights, and their ability to freely and fully participate in a functioning democracy. In this election, the contrast couldn’t be greater, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

I will be voting for President Biden.

https://t.co/Lmn7qJzADI

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@TheOnlyEsta Yes! Very competent human! A rarity in Washington

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@BeschlossDC So Biden could order a hit on him?

[💙Brittney💙 @AZ_Brittney]

Dr. Fauci is a hero who saved countless lives!

I will always support Dr. Fauci!

Drop a ❤️ and Repost if you do too!

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@margaritaaay_xx Do not do this to your husband. Zero husbands want this.

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@PamelaMcKenzie @VitalVegas Great! Stock market is on fire, unemployment is low, jobless claims are low.

[Melissa Grove @yesmelissa]

@JaclynFOX5Vegas We had 7 Uber rides our last trip in October and they all said they would not work during F1.

[Circa Las Vegas @CircaLasVegas]

Raising a glass to the roaring twenties. 🥂✨

#Gatsby #CircaLasVegas #LegacyClub