Catherine Gigante-Brown

Being a little bit chubby is better than being a lot dead.

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

What Stephen didn’t know –– what no one knew –– was how weak my knees grew when I pushed through the swinging doors of the ICU.

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

herbalist. shiatsu practitioner. healer.

At first, I felt like an abandoned ten-year-old, dropped off at a remote summer camp—with the extra added attraction of no cell phone reception or Wi-Fi. I thought the hardest part of the weekend was going to be picking out a robe. Boy, was I wrong!

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

“It’s almost as though this niche was patiently waiting for us to find it.”

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

We’ve pieced ourselves back together in a patchwork quilt of ragged emotions. The aftermath of 9/11 wasn’t easy for us, yet it was much easier than for some. People standing 50 feet away from Peter didn’t come home that night; he did.