I have noticed while straddling two cultures – my family’s and my birthplace’s – that the universality of death and grief ends there. How we approach it, the means by which we acknowledge it and the language surrounding it areRead more…
Counting days: seasons of grief
It’s a warm day in late October and the jacarandas are in bloom. Their purple canopies frame my wide street and their scent is mixed with the cut grass and the fumes from the nearby main road. My shopping bagsRead more…
The wave goodbye
I enter through a stain-glassed door where I immediately notice a host of familiar faces, my father, my aunt, and other relatives who I have not spoken to in years. I scan the crowd for a welcoming smile and findRead more…
When you come back
Ten years ago we watched the violent pink light of a rocket disappear into a crimson sky from the creaky porch of our parents’ home. We knew then that you’d be leaving us soon. That the blazing trail of aRead more…