Each time I cross a border, I feel the push and pull in my body, a cacophony of competing desires. And always there are choices to make: what to assimilate, what to reject. Is it true that we are always, as migrants, and the children of migrants, attempting to choose what my parents call "the best of both worlds"? Or is it possible to transcend—no,

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Back home in Chicago, my parents grew old. I didn’t see this happening and neither did they. They were busy birdwatching, attending new plays, trying new restaurants. Our relationship had mellowed and warmed with time. But then my father, my sweet, strong, and only father—he began to die, and then he died. Words that still don’t sound true five... See more

Here’s a word. Bereavement. Or, Bereaved. Bereft. It’s from the Old English bereafian, meaning ‘to deprive of, take away, seize, rob’. Robbed. Seized. It happens to everyone. But you feel it alone. Shocking loss isn’t to be shared, no matter how hard you try. ‘Imagine,’ I said, back then, to some friends, in an earnest attempt to explain, ‘imagine

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