Catherine Gigante-Brown

I’m boycotting you until you start recognizing breast cancer survivors like me by carrying mastectomy bras.

At the New York City release party for Dayna Kurtz’ latest, Rise and Fall, my friend Nadia leaned over to me and whispered, “Why the fuck

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

I was 21 –– a Catholic, heterosexual college student, living at home in Brooklyn and still trying to discover who I was. At the crossroads of her life, Lorde knew exactly who she was. She was waging a war against cancer and sharing an old house in Staten Island with her kids and partner. But maybe we weren’t so different after all.

At first, I felt like an abandoned ten-year-old, dropped off at a remote summer camp—with the extra added attraction of no cell phone reception or Wi-Fi. I thought the hardest part of the weekend was going to be picking out a robe. Boy, was I wrong!

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.

Although I tried to convince myself that I wasn't racist, if the truth were told, I didn't like Muslims. Especially after 9/11.

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.

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

To the tattoo artist, I was a flesh canvas that she could transform into something beautiful.