Catherine Gigante-Brown

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

Makeup and I have always had a love/hate relationship: I love it; it hates me.

I realized my father was from a generation that never said those three little words. He was saying he loved me without them. But I didn't realize it then.

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

Although I tried to convince myself that I wasn't racist, if the truth were told, I didn't like Muslims. Especially after 9/11.

Why, when I'm cool with being a salt-and-pepper chick, does it so clearly unnerve others?

That’s the thing about being a breast cancer survivor — it’s always there: it never goes away. The scars, the fear that lurks in the back of your mind like a boogeyman. You’re going along nicely, living your merry life, and you’re fine, until you’re not.

To the tattoo artist, I was a flesh canvas that she could transform into something beautiful.

You realize pretty soon that everything other than cancer — i.e. missing a train, being late to your dentist appointment — is no biggie compared to the suck factor of chemo.

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