Pop-Pop never talked about how the person you are when you ship off isn’t the person you are when you ship back. How a war story is only a story if it didn’t happen to you.… more
Pop-Pop never talked about how the person you are when you ship off isn’t the person you are when you ship back. How a war story is only a story if it didn’t happen to you.… more
The day my father called to ask if I could help him bury Casey, his golden retriever, I said no, and maybe if I had answered differently this story would be over, but instead he still steps out of his garage with a shovel to dig the hole alone.… more
His parents called him Little Rambo because he liked watching Stallone manhandle the bad guys on an old VHS tape. He rewound the tape over and over until he copied Rambo’s posture the right way and shot his own little arrow through the air into mimosa trees lining their property. He ran through the woods and jumped over fallen pine, charging after imaginary enemies, calling out and telling them that he was coming for them.… more
Something other than forgiveness for a con man… more
Onscreen, George Bailey is wandering the streets of Bedford Falls, pacing by the house of the girl he is meant to be with but doesn’t know it yet. I cry when he shakes her like a rabbit. You think I don’t know that love?… more
Well, the revolution made Karim fatherless all his life. Now the coup made him lifeless. … more
Her sigh woke us—Dad from his silent, attentive driving, and us from our screens in the backseat. … more
Violence is all about the truth. You have to hand it to violence — everyone knows where they are with it.… more
“When grandmother passed away, father grew reticent. And I was okay with it, since he abandoned his routine of scolding me for lacking masculinity. Since he didn’t condemn every tear that fell from my face, spewing the same toxic rhetoric of how I needed to emotionally withdraw and appear similar to a parapet wrapped in black derma, to protect everyone around me, just like him. When I thought I would cry most, I felt nothing.”… more