Catherine Gigante-Brown

If the odds of getting cancer are like Powerball, why couldn't I be a scratch-off millionaire?

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.

I asked a handful of women: why are people so scared of ladyparts?

The hell with his elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases. Iambic pentameter is cruel and unusual punishment.

The overinflated American work ethic is slowly killing us. It’s constantly pushing us to do more — put in longer hours, check business emails on personal time, take calls from our bosses when we’re chilling in Cancun.

I sat obediently in her chair atop four ancient copies of the Yellow Pages. Crossing my fingers, I prayed Catholic schoolgirl prayers.

Even when I explained to my son that he came from a long line of short people, it didn’t help. David still felt bad about being small. How could a five-year-old possibly get this type of size-shaming message? From other people, mostly insensitive adults. They gave him the idea that bigger was somehow better.

When David was about 12, he told me that he wanted to take the train to school alone. My gut reaction was, “No way in hell!” I mean, we live in a safe neighborhood and all, but David has ADHD and was easily distracted. What if he missed his stop? What if someone messed with him?

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.

The heartbreaking saga of a 14-year-old Black prostitute who was murdered in cold blood by her (maybe) pimp on Christmas Eve in 1900 Savannah.