If I was a half-way decent friend and person, I would’ve let her talk freely, no matter how excruciating it was for me.

They need to see their mom crying. They need to see me struggling. They need to see me being human.

Any tough thing that comes their way, you will be there no matter how hard it is because you will summon that inner badass that lies within us all.

Losing a parent isn’t easy, and it gets no simpler with age; the thing we at Mamalode want you to remember when going through this grief is that you are not alone.

When my mom was sick, people used to tell her she was “so strong.” She knew they were well intentioned, but she hated hearing that. “What choice do I have?” she would ask.

Our city bruised but not beaten. The indelible images impressed on my retinas are invisible to him.

It was not until I saw the World Trade Centers burn, not until we saw the skyline — our skyline —swallowed by fire and smoke and soot, I grasped the gravity of what was happening.