People
What Bird Watching Gave Me After My Miscarriage
It was satisfying to see those robins, sparrows, and starlings, because they were still with us. They had stayed.
My Grandfather Helps Me Find Myself, Even Though He’s Gone
My family isn’t religious, but we have a saying that we do believe in my grandfather. And an essay he wrote about me reminds me to believe in myself.
Why I Needed to See the Heart of Padre Pio
An obsession with a Catholic saint and his relics made me think about the pieces of myself I had offered up to others.
The Place We Once Called Home: A Comic
How do you mourn someone who is still alive, who might as well be a stranger now?
I Stopped Dyeing My Gray Hair as an Act of Resistance
Beauty and its pursuit can be art, a delight, a terrific party. But a party you must attend every day isn’t a party at all. It’s an unpaid job.
Watching Home Movies After My Double Mastectomy
Inside her small body lives every answer to every obstacle. No maps are necessary. She is the map.
Loving Your Immigrant Parents, Superstitions and All
There’s a distinct kind of relationship that privileged first-generation children have with their immigrant parents.
How Reading True Crime Stories Helps Us Face Our Own Fears
“Not thinking about these things doesn’t make them go away. So, instead, I choose to look. It is staring into a dim room and letting my eyes adjust to the dark.”
How A War in the Middle East Changed My Family in the Philippines Forever
Papa left the summer I turned eight. The emotional toll of a wife who blamed him was too much to carry along with the burden of repatriating thousands of Filipino citizens.
How Shanties and Songs of the Sea Helped Me Weather the Storm of Depression
The language of depression can be curiously maritime. It comes in waves; it drowns us; it’s the Mariner’s albatross around our necks.