Catherine Gigante-Brown

Were you going to run into that cute guy John Williams on the way home? Would you see Anne Marie by the lockers and sort out what to do for the weekend? It was hit-or-miss, and that was the beauty of it. The breath-holding chance of it all. Now, our kids’ friends are as close as a keyboard stroke away. It’s too easy.

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.

"Bring over a meal—and leave. Breakfast, lunch or dinner, from soup to nuts. And coffee. Plenty of coffee."

Mindel and Maria were young teenagers when the horrors occurred—but they remembered the tiniest details with crystal-clear intensity.

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

You learn a lot about people when you live in their home. The Taylors seemed to lead a joyless, Spartan existence.

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 was afraid this thing was going to do me in. But I took a deep breath and decided very early on that I would face cancer on my own terms."

Content Notice: Death

I immediately developed a hot-and-heavy girlcrush on the wild, wacky, brash, candid, feminist, rubber-faced comedian—and you should too.