Catherine Gigante-Brown

I thought cancer was behind me. Until I had a weird pain near my left ovary which lasted for several days. It felt a lot like ovulation...Only, at 56, that train had left the station a long time ago.

You learn a lot about people when you live in their home. The Taylors seemed to lead a joyless, Spartan existence.

I saw my present mother-in-law in a whole new light the first time she held my newborn son.

"Sometimes David wore his hair spiked like a cockscomb. Others, he wore it feathery like a baby chick. He wore his Mohawk to summer camp (exchanging encouraging head chucks with another older camper who sported one, too) and even to Vacation Bible School—no judgment there."

"Bring over a meal—and leave. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, from soup to nuts. And coffee. Plenty of coffee."

Alas, I am the lone female in a house full of men. Only two men, but they take up a lot of space.

raunchy renaissance woman. multimedia artist. probably a slut.

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.

"I was afraid this thing was going to do me in. But I took a deep breath and decided very early on that I would face cancer on my own terms."

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.