On this day Aug 15, in 2018, Mom and I visited Char in the hospital after Caleb was born and brought flowers.

Last weekend, I went to the opening of the new Philippine Cultural Arts Center in Port Hueneme and took a picture with Char, her sister Chris, and her boy Caleb, now eight.

Later, I attended a book launch and birthday party for one of my mom’s Dancing Buddies, Luzviminda Morales, now a self-published author. Same shirt from eight years ago, different look, Mom gone.

And the pictures don’t tell the whole story. What it feels like to be out there, when everything inside me, my unwritten, unpublished words, are struggling to be free.