Catherine Gigante-Brown

I immediately developed a hot-and-heavy girlcrush on the wild, wacky, brash, candid, feminist, rubber-faced comedian—and you should too.

I try. I really do. But whenever I attempt to embrace my husband Peter’s Cuban culture, I always screw up.

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

Even when I explained to my son that he came from a long line of short people, it didn’t help. David still felt bad about being small. How could a five-year-old possibly get this type of size-shaming message? From other people, mostly insensitive adults. They gave him the idea that bigger was somehow better.

Instead of categorizing people as different colors, I proposed we might begin to think of each other as Earthtones—because our skin colors are based on hues from the earth. Just as the planet is made up of a myriad of shades, it’s still one cohesive entity. We can be thought of as one entity also.

Mindel and Maria were young teenagers when the horrors occurred—but they remembered the tiniest details with crystal-clear intensity.

Why do we venerate individuality in adults but condemn it in children?

8. Educate, don’t fixate.

Once upon a time, it was easier to keep track of gender. Today, not so much — the lines are blurred. For many, gender’s not so much about questioning your own identity as it is about questioning the very nature of identity.

After I got over the initial devastation, I pulled myself up by my big-girl panties and got on with it. Chemo was no picnic—but it was do-able.