Catherine Gigante-Brown

I realized my father was from a generation that never said those three little words. He was saying he loved me without them. But I didn't realize it then.

herbalist. shiatsu practitioner. healer.

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

I left Cuba in 1949, when I was 11 years old. Back then, I didn't understand why my mother sent me away. I still don't.

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.

The Ultimate Counter Culture Diva

Content Notice: Death

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

The office cubicle is indeed a strange bird. Here's how to survive life in a box without driving you—or your office mates—crazy.

"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."