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When I was in eighth grade, a teacher asked us to write an essay about what we feared most. I wrote that I feared being told in the middle of class that I had a phone call

Mounds of laundry — and even little humps of them — in the hamper create an itch that needs to be scratched, umm, washed

“He’s much more okay than you remember. He’s changed.” She says this because I look skeptical. Duvi, that skinny boy, that branded child?

By the time I came onto the scene, the extended family had grown so large that we spilled out of Aunt Vali’s small apartment

“This journey has cracked me open to my core and nearly broken me many times. In overcoming these challenges, I’m bringing home with me some of life’s greatest lessons”

“Why do I feel like I’m being kidnapped?”