Patron Saints Of Nothing Quotes

I will try not to judge because I have no idea what you were struggling with in your heart, what complicated your soul. None of us are just one thing, I guess.

Sometimes I feel like growing up is slowly peeling back these layers of lies.

It's a sad thing when you map the borders of a friendship and find it's a narrower country than expected.

That was the way things worked. When you were looking for the big fight, the moment that you thought would knock everything over, nothing much happened at all.

It strikes me that I cannot claim this country’s serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history. To say that any aspect of it is part of me is to say that all of it is part of me.

We all have the terrible and amazing power to hurt and help, to harm and heal. We all do both throughout our lives. That’s the way it is. I suppose we just go on and do the best we can and try to do more good than bad using our time in Earth.

You saw my pain for what it was, recognized it as if it were your own, and gave me the love I needed to heal. I will never forget that.

That's not how stories work, is it? They are shifting things that re-form with each new telling, transform with each new teller. Less solid, and more liquid taking the shape of its container.

I expected the truth to illuminate, to resurrect. Not to ruin.

My family, myself, this world — all of us are flawed. But flawed doesn’t mean hopeless. It doesn’t mean forsaken. It doesn’t mean lost.

How do you mourn someone you already let slip away? Are you even allowed to?

When you grow up in a country like the United States, you’re constantly told it’s the greatest place in the world. But then you go somewhere else one day and find out that bathroom doors like this exist, and you start to question everything.

It was like he used all his compassion on strangers and ran out by the time he came home.

If we are to be more than what we have been, there's so much that we need to say. Salvation through honesty, I guess.

Fuck those people who say being born somewhere doesn’t count if you didn’t grow up there or because half your ancestors are from somewhere else. Fuck anyone who tries to tell you who you are and where you belong.

There is nothing greater than love; it is stronger than any evil, any darkness. Show me the way, Jesus! Love is the answer. If we love one another, then we need not fear anything else. Love is everything.

People are sick sand starving to death in our country, in our streets, and nobody cares. They worry instead about grades and popularity and money and trying to go to America. I don't want to be another one of those people who just pretends like they don't know about the suffering, like they don't see it every single day, like they don't walk past it on their way to school or work.

What if I don’t have a clue what I want to do?” I ask. “It takes time, I think. Follow your interests. Develop your strengths. Stay open to trying new things.” She hesitates, then adds, “Maybe you haven’t developed a passion yet because you’ve spent your entire life doing what others wanted you to do.

What is the point, you know? People are sick and starving to death in our country, in our streets, and nobody cares.

..., his death tallied as an improvement to society.

None of us are just one thing, I guess. None of us. We all have the terrible and amazing power to hurt and help, to harm and heal. We all do both throughout our lives. That's the way it is.

But there are good things I can hold on to and there are other things I have the power to change. My family, myself, this world—all of us are flawed. But flawed doesn’t mean hopeless. It doesn’t mean forsaken. It doesn’t mean lost. We are not doomed to suffer things as they are, silent and alone. We do not have to leave questions and letters and lives unanswered. We have more power and potential than we know if we would only speak, if we would only listen.

Like a tree in the wind, he will bend before the strength of my conviction.

It’s easy to romanticize a place when it’s far away,” he goes on, making this officially the most I’ve heard him speak at once in a long time. “Filipino Americans have a tendency to do that. Even me. Sometimes I miss it so much. The beaches. The water. The rice paddies. The carabao. The food. Most of all, my family.” He closes his eyes, and I wonder if he’s imagining himself there right now. After a few moments, he opens them again, but he stares at his hands. “But as many good things as there are, there are many bad things, things not so easy to see from far away. When you are close, though, they are sometimes all you see.

It’s easy to romanticize a place when it’s far away. Filipino Americans have a tendency to do that. Even me. Sometimes I miss it so much. The beaches. The water. The rice paddies. The carabao. The food. Most of all, my family.

But, it seems to me that there are so many older than us who are able to take care of those in need. If everyone did a little bit, then everybody would be okay, I think. Instead, most people do nothing. And that is the problem.

She curses under her breath. It must be Tagalog because I catch, “mga lalaki,” the phrase for “men,” somewhere in there. “Hey,” I start to protest. “We’re not all—“ “Stop,” Mia cuts me off. “Don’t make it about you. Just listen.

tell the truth.” “Even if the truth does nothing but cause the family anguish?” “They deserve to know.” “Or do they deserve peace?

No matter the source, most follow the same flow: They describe the drug and corruption problems, Duterte’s solution, and the mounting body count. Few include the victims’ full names. Most suggest that these killings are crimes against humanity, including a note about the international community’s condemnation—but inaction.

I thought of the sermon we had just heard at Mass that morning. It was about the Good Samaritan. You know the one? I think everyone does. Or, at least, everyone has heard it. Every time I do, I think, surely, if I were in that situation I would be like the Samaritan and help the man in need. But how many times have I instead walked past?

Isn’t that illegal?” “The government determines what’s legal.

I’m not sure what I want to do. For some reason, that’s not okay. Everyone acts like seventeen-year-olds who don’t have their career path mapped out are wasting their lives.

lanning a wedding can be murder. Planning weddings for a living is nothing short of suicide. “Is there a patron saint for wedding consultants? Because I think after this wedding, I just might

Maybe he was reaching out to me through those words, and I let him slip away. I stayed silent. If I had written to him more often, been more honest, would it have helped him work through some of his problems so he wouldn’t have run away from home? Maybe if I tried to find him, I would have. Maybe he wouldn’t have become an addict if someone were there for him. Maybe he wouldn’t have been killed in the street by the police, his death tallied as an improvement to society.

So what’s your informed opinion?” “That it’s not my place to say what’s right or wrong in a country that’s not mine.” “But you lived there. You’re married to a Filipino. You have Filipino children.” “Filipino American children,” she corrects. “And it’s not the same.

When you’re a kid, they lie and say you did a great job in a game even if you sucked. Then you grow up a bit and your mom and dad lie to you about how strong their relationship is and how much they love each other after they have a big fight. Then you grow up a bit more and they tell you the lie that life is as simple as studying hard, getting into a good college, and finding a decent job. Sometimes I feel like growing up is slowly peeling back these layers of lies.

We failed him in life. We should not fail him in death.

Man,” he says, shaking his head, “I forgot you’re Filipino.” “Huh?” “You’re basically white.

You may not speak Tagalog or know as much as you would like about the Philippines, but if we’d stayed, you wouldn’t have had all the opportunities that you’ve had here.

I'm simultaneously bursting with pride at my cousin's integrity and hating him for his inability to suppress it like the rest of us do with such ease.

I've forgotten what it's like to be around so many people who look like me. I feel like I belong in a way I never do back in the States.

Kuya Jun had a way of making people pay attention, of making them realize that others existed outside of themselves and getting them to care.

His courage was like this storm. Mine is like a single raindrop. his life was defined by his constant drive to do what he thought was right. Mine is defined by everything I don't do.

Our family doesn’t talk much, and usually anything important is passed along in fragments so that it feels like we’re playing that telephone game, except a sadder, real-life version.

We all have this same intense ability to love running through us. It wasn't only Jun. But for some reason, so many of us don't use it like he did. We keep it hidden. We bury it until it becomes an underground river. Until we barely remember it's there. Until it's too far down to tap. But maybe it's time to dig it up. To let the sun hit the water. To let it flood.

So we’re just going to act like this didn’t happen? Like Jun didn’t even exist?” After a beat, she turns around to face me and crosses her arms. “If that’s what’s best for his family, then yes.

English is a language that lives in the middle of the mouth, but Tagalog is more of an open throat song that dances between the tip of the tongue and the teeth. My mouth feels too heavy, too thick, too slow to produce the light, rapid syllables Filipinos spit with such ease. I curse my parents for not teaching me the language when I was young, when the struggle would have seemed more like a fun game than an identity crisis.

Surely the air your lungs first breathe matters. The language your ears first hear. The foods your nose first smells and your tongue first tastes. The soil you first crawl upon. My conscious brain might not remember, but something in me does.

And what is England if not a farm with soil to be tilled and vines to tend?” Ned asked. “She needs a farmer to see to her needs, and nothing else will do. That’s why our patron saint shares the same name, because the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the faith.

I don't see color, man,' he says. 'We're all one race: the human race. That's all I meant.' 'No it's not,' I say. And even if it is, that's kind of fucked up. First, to assume white is default. Second to imply that difference equals bad instead of simply different.

I was so close to feeling like I had Jun's story nailed down. But no. That's not how stories work, is it? They are shifting things that re-form with each new telling, transform with each new teller. Less a solid, and more a liquid taking the shape of its container.

It’s the photos that hit me the hardest, though. A woman cradling her husband’s limp body. A crowd looking on, emotionless, as police shine a flashlight on a woman’s bloodied corpse. A couple, half on the ground and half tangled in their moped, their blank faces turned toward the camera and sprays of blood on the pavement behind their heads. Sisters gathered around their baby brother’s body lying in its small casket. A body with its head covered in a dirty cloth left in a pile of garbage on the side of the street. Grayish-green corpses stacked like firewood in an improvised morgue. There’s even a short video of grainy security cam footage in which a masked motorcyclist pulls up next to a man in an alleyway, shoots him point-blank in the side of the head, then drives away. In high definition, I see the victims’ wounds, their oddly twisted limbs, their blood and brain matter sprayed across familiar-looking streets. In every dead body, I see Jun. I want to look away. But I don’t. I need to know. I need to see it. These photographers didn’t want to water it down. They wanted the audience to confront the reality, to feel the pain that’s been numbed by a headline culture.

But there are good things I can hold on to and there are other things I have the power to change. My family, myself, this world--al of us are flawed. But flawed doesn't mean hopeless. It doesn't mean forsaken. It doesn't mean lost. We are not doomed to suffer things as they are, silent and alone. We do not have to leave questions and letters and lives unanswered. We have more power and potential than we know if we would only speak, if we would only listen.

nasty little dragon. It wouldn’t happen again. He was St George and he would slay the dragon. That was how it worked, wasn’t it? He knew the story. He was a hero, a patron saint. He was England. This country was his. His people were marching towards him from all corners. He would take his throne. But first he had to destroy the dragon. He would butcher him like a piece of meat; a long pig, that’s all he was: cutlets, chops, ribs and chitterlings. He would make sausages out of him, ha, because in the end he was nothing more than a side of pork … No, smaller than that. He was just a lamb. A leg of lamb. Yes. He would slaughter the lamb.

Never mind that Britain has a German royal family, a Norman ruling elite, a Greek patron saint, a Roman/Middle Eastern religion, Indian food as its national cuisine, an Arabic/Indian numeral system, a Latin alphabet and an identity predicated on a multi-ethnic, globe-spanning empire – ‘fuck the bloody foreigners’. Never mind that waves of migration have been a constant in British history and that great many millions of 'white' Britons are themselves descendants of Jewish, Eastern European and Irish migrants of the nineteenth century, nor that even in the post-war 'mass migration' years, Ireland and Europe were the largest source of immigrants. And, of course, let's say nothing about the millions of British emigrants, settlers and colonists abroad - conveniently labeled 'expats'.

Though we are confident that Blessed Martin had no serious sins with which to reproach himself, though his contemporaries assure us that they had moral certitude that he had ever preserved his baptismal innocence, he regarded himself, like St. Paul, as the least of all men and unworthy of the habit he wore. Martin never lost an opportunity of being humiliated; he gladly received any personal insults and injuries as an ordinary person would receive favors. Indeed, he evidenced clear signs of gratitude to those who humbled him - he looked upon them as his real benefactors, and nothing caused him so much affliction of the soul and mental anguish as hearing himself the object of praise. When he found himself thus honored, especially by those distinguished by their good sense and their position of dignity in the community, he promptly sought out the most hidden place and there mercilessly inflicted upon himself a penance, usually in the form of the discipline. When it was impossible for him to retire, he had the habit of striking his breast unobtrusively and humbling himself before Almighty God. Even at times, especially when he was not conscious of the fact that he was being observed, strange words of self-deprecation fell from his lips. We are assured that he often repeated epithets of scorn, that he would mutter: 'What real merit have you? Remember that you ought to be nothing but a slave. Only through the mercy of God are you tolerated by these holy religious.

P lanning a wedding can be murder. Planning weddings for a living is nothing short of suicide. “Is there a patron saint for wedding consultants? Because I think after this wedding, I just might meet the requirements.” I stood near the top of the wide marble staircase that swept down the middle of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s central foyer . Below me, dozens of tuxedo-clad waiters scurried around the enormous hall filled end to end with tables and gold ladder-backed chairs. After having draped ivory chiffon into swags on all forty tables, I massaged the red indentations left

P lanning a wedding can be murder. Planning weddings for a living is nothing short of suicide. “Is there a patron saint for wedding consultants? Because I think after this wedding, I just might meet the requirements.” I stood near the top of the wide marble staircase that swept down the middle of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s central foyer . Below me, dozens of tuxedo-clad waiters scurried around the enormous hall filled end to end with tables and gold ladder-backed chairs. After

P lanning a wedding can be murder. Planning weddings for a living is nothing short of suicide. “Is there a patron saint for wedding consultants? Because I think after this wedding, I just might meet the requirements.” I stood near the top of the wide marble staircase that swept down the middle of the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s central foyer. Below me, dozens of tuxedo-clad waiters scurried around the enormous hall filled end to end with tables and gold ladder-backed chairs. After having draped ivory chiffon into swags on all forty tables, I massaged the red indentations left on my fingers by the heavy pins. “Annabelle, darling, I may be a lapsed Catholic, but I’m pretty sure you have to be dead to qualify for sainthood.” Richard Gerard has been one of my closest friends since I arrived in Washington, D.C. three years ago and started “Wedding Belles.” At the time he’d been the only top caterer who’d bother talking to a new wedding planner. Now I worked with him almost exclusively. “The wedding isn’t over yet.”“At least your suffering hasn’t been in vain.” Richard motioned at the room below us. “It’s divine.” The museum’s enormous hall did look magical. The side railings of the staircase were draped with a floral garland, leading to a pair of enormous white rose topiaries flanking the bottom of the stairs. Amber light washed each of the three-story limestone columns bordering the room, and white organza hung from the ceiling, creating sheer curtains that were tied back at each column with clusters of ivory roses. “I just hope the MOB is happy.” My smile disappeared as I thought

It strikes me that I cannot claim this country's serene coves and sun-soaked beaches without also claiming its poverty, its problems, its history. To say that any aspect of it is part of me is to say that all of it is part of me.

But as many good things as there are, there are many bad things, things not so easy to see from far away. When you are close, though, they are sometimes all you see.

And the conversation continues, blessed by the morning.

Many of my friends spend so much time worrying about likes or favorites or followers. But none of that is real

I fall quiet trying to reconcile the violent vision of that relatively recent event with the mundane middle-class fantasy of this mall, with the international stereotype of Filipinos as friendly and subservient.

Okay if I steal some of your body head?

Since Spirit’s around me so much, I’m not gonna lie--a few times I’ve used it to my advantage. Oh, come on, wouldn’t you? As a mom, being a medium always worked well with keeping my kids in line. I never really knew what was going on with them, but I’d tell them that I’d send my guides with them when they went out so they’d stay out of trouble! Victoria and my son, Larry, never thought about doing anything bad because they probably thought Spirit would rat them out. I even called them up a few times to find out if they were okay, and said my Spirit guides told me to. But I was just being a nervous mom--Spirit hadn’t told me anything! Now that they’re older, I don’t do this. I don’t even think Spirit would help me spy on Victoria at school, or on my son when he’s at a bar with his friends. Spirit probably thinks there’s a lot that I’m better off not knowing. I’ve also asked my angels to help me find a parking spot at the mall or items I’ve lost around the house. I spend most of my day searching for stuff I’ve misplaced because I’m such a space cadet, so if I didn’t ask for Spirit’s help with this, I’d get nothing done. To enlist their aid, I calmly sit down, relax, and pray to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost articles, that he guide me to where I put the item. You can try this, too. My husband, Larry, always says I can talk to souls across many dimensions, but I can’t find the keys in my own damn pocketbook.

The patron saint of vengeance dwells within the ash of the heart’s hearth. For nothing screams for vengeance more than losing what we love while still breathing.

My tan faded. My tongue forgot the taste of tocino and Tagalog.

You see, while the people in the colonies were being told Britain was their mother, much of white Britain had convinced itself that these undeserving niggers - Asians were niggers too, back then - had just got off their banana boats to come and freeload, to take 'their' jobs and steal ‘their’ women. Never mind that Britain has a German royal family, a Norman ruling elite, a Greek patron saint, a Roman/Middle Eastern religion, Indian food as its national cuisine, an Arabic/Indian numeral system, a Latin alphabet and an identity predicated on a multi-ethnic, globe-spanning empire- ‘fuck the bloody foreigners'. Never mind that waves of migration have been a constant in British history and that great many millions of ‘white' Britons are themselves descendants of Jewish, Eastern European and Irish migrants of the nineteenth century, nor that even in the post-war 'mass migration' years, Ireland and Europe were the largest source of immigrants. And, of course, let's say nothing about the millions of British emigrants, settlers and colonists abroad - conveniently labelled 'expats'.

How many ‘mistakes’ have to happen before people realize it’s not worth it?

Maybe you haven't developed a passion yet because you've spent your entire life doing what others wanted you to do.

Fuck anyone who tries to tell you who you are and where you belong.

In losing the story that we had told ourselves about Jun, we've lost him all over again, in a new way.

As to Orphism, it soon blended with the worship of the god Dionysus, who originated in Thrace, and who was worshipped there in the form of a bull. Dionysus was quickly accepted in seventh-century Greece, because he was exactly what the Greeks needed to complete their pantheon of gods; under the name Bacchus he became the god of wine, and his symbol was sometimes an enormous phallus. Frazer speaks of Thracian rites involving wild dances, thrilling music and tipsy excess, and notes that such goings-on were foreign to the clear rational nature of the Greeks. But the religion still spread like wildfire throughout Greece, especially among women—indicating, perhaps, a revolt against civilisation. It became a religion of orgies; women worked themselves into a frenzy and rushed about the hills, tearing to pieces any living creature they found. Euripides’ play The Bacchae tells how King Pentheus, who opposed the religion of Bacchus, was torn to pieces by a crowd of women, which included his mother and sisters, all in ‘Bacchic frenzy.’ In their ecstasy the worshippers of Bacchus became animals, and behaved like animals, killing living creatures and eating them raw. The profound significance of all this was recognised by the philosopher Nietzsche, who declared himself a disciple of the god Dionysus. He spoke of the ‘blissful ecstasy that rises from the innermost depths of man,’ dissolving his sense of personality: in short, the sexual or magical ecstasy. He saw Dionysus as a fundamental principle of human existence; man’s need to throw off his personality, to burst the dream-bubble that surrounds him and to experience total, ecstatic affirmation of everything. In this sense, Dionysus is fundamentally the god, or patron saint, of magic. The spirit of Dionysus pervades all magic, especially the black magic of the later witch cults, with their orgiastic witch’s sabbaths so like the orgies of Dionysus’s female worshippers, even to the use of goats, the animal sacred to Dionysus. (Is it not also significant that Dionysus is a horned god, like the Christian devil?) The ‘scent of truth’ that made Ouspensky prefer books on magic to the ‘hard facts’ of daily journalism is the scent of Dionysian freedom, man’s sudden absurd glimpse of his godlike potentialities. It is also true that the spirit of Dionysus, pushed to new extremes through frustration and egomania, permeates the work of De Sade. As Philip Vellacot remarks of Dionysus in his introduction to The Bacchae: ‘But, though in the first half of the play there is some room for sympathy with Dionysus, this sympathy steadily diminishes until at the end of the play, his inhuman cruelty inspires nothing but horror.’ But this misses the point about Dionysus—that sympathy is hardly an emotion he would appreciate. He descends like a storm wind, scattering all human emotion.

… he was one of those people who moved through the world as if he had been around for a long time.

malungkot ako. In English: “I am sad,” or, “I am down.” But translation is hard—perhaps “tired,” the larger way you use it, is the better word. Tired of my nanay caring only about what others think of our family. Tired of my tatay believing he always knows what is wrong and what is right all the time just because he is a police chief. Tired of the kids at school talking about music and TV shows and celebrities like any of it matters. What is the point, you know? People are sick and starving to death in our country, in our streets, and nobody cares. They worry instead about grades and popularity and money and trying to go to America. I don’t want to be another one of those people who just pretends like they don’t know about the suffering, like they don’t see it every single day, like they don’t walk past it on their way to school or work.

Do you lie to your patients?” I ask. She raises her eyebrows. “Not to my patients, but sometimes to their families, yes.” “You serious?” She nods. “Sometimes my patients want me to lie for them. Nothing out of line. Mostly they want me to say something in a way that will give their loved ones relief. Or at least, something that won’t leave them with too much despair.” I shake my head. Unbelievable. “If I have a patient who is dying slowly and painfully, and he asks me to tell his family that he won’t suffer in his final moments, what am I supposed to do?

After Jun ran away from home, he started living on the streets. At some point he started using.” I stare hard at my untouched cup of tea. A lump forms in my throat. “Overdose?” Mom shakes her head. I look up. “Then what?” “He . . .” She trails off and looks around again as if to make sure Dad isn’t within earshot. Then her eyes land on mine and soften. “He was shot.” She pauses. “By the police.” “The police?” She nods. “Why would the police shoot him for using drugs?” She takes another deep breath. “Duterte.

Jay, it’s easy for us to pass judgment. But we don’t live there anymore, so we can’t grasp the extent to which drugs have affected the country. According to what I’ve read, most Filipinos believe it’s for the greater good. Harsh but necessary. To them, Duterte is someone finally willing to do what it takes to set things right.

What happened with Jun,” I start, “made me realize how little I know about Dad’s side of the family, about that side of myself. I mean, we see your relatives in Ohio almost every summer, Mom, but I haven’t seen Dad’s family or been to the Philippines in almost a decade. I don’t speak Tagalog. I can’t even name more than a handful of cities in the country. But all of that’s part of me, isn’t it? Or, I mean, it should be. It’s like I only know half of myself.

So what’s up, Dad?” “‘What’s up?’” he repeats. “That’s a very American phrase, isn’t it?” “Yeah, I guess so.” “You’re very American. Like your mother. No accent like me.” I shrug. “That’s why I moved us here. I wanted you, your brother, and your sister to be American.” “Mission: accomplished.” I draw my knees to my chest, seeing this for what it is. “You may not speak Tagalog or know as much as you would like about the Philippines, but if we’d stayed, you wouldn’t have had all the opportunities that you’ve had here.

I know you mean well,” Tita Ami says, “but you should not have done that.” “Why?” I ask. A moment later, two boys—just as young and dirty and hungry-looking as the girl—approach and start knocking on the glass with their knuckles. Their knocking is more insistent, their pleas more demanding. “They are like ants,” Tita Ami explains. “You will never get rid of them all.

my Filipino titas and titos laughed. Not in a mean way, I think, but more like it was amusing that a dog’s death affected me so much because it was nothing to them. Another day. Another dog. My cousins did not need to have someone stroke their hair and reassure them that death was part of life.

When I texted my family the news this afternoon, right after I found out, I could virtually hear their collective sigh of relief at the fact that I was finally accepted somewhere. My sister, Em, replied first with, “Fuck yea, baby bro” followed by, like, fifty exclamation points. Mom messaged, “Oh, honey! We’re so proud of you! (And watch your language, Em!)” while from Dad I got a “I mean, it’s not Harvard . . .” joke that wasn’t fully a joke. My brother, Chris, still hasn’t responded. “I never wanted to go to any of those schools anyway,” I say, answering Seth’s earlier question. It sounds super defensive, but it’s true. I’m not sure what I want to do. For some reason, that’s not okay. Everyone acts like seventeen-year-olds who don’t have their career path mapped out are wasting their lives.

Jun really was the only person I’ve ever talked to about these kinds of feelings. We used to share all kinds of things back when we used to write each other letters. Actual letters—not emails or texts or DMs. Now that I think about it, Jun should also be graduating this year—assuming he went back to school. I wish I had a way to find out what he’s up to. But I don’t. I messed that up a long time ago.

He’s gone,” Dad repeats after some time. “That’s it.” And then a nervous laugh escapes his lips. I try to process the information. Jun is dead—his life has ended. And here I am, sitting in my living room on the other side of the world, a can of Coke on the coffee table, playing a video game on an enormous, wall-mounted flat-screen TV, college on the docket.

Wait,” I call after him, “can we get there in time for the funeral?” He stops. Over his shoulder: “There won’t be one.” Confusion hits me like a wall. “Why not?” “Your Tito Maning doesn’t want to have one. The way he died . . . it wasn’t . . . it’s not our concern.” “What do you mean?” I ask. But he’s already gone, probably retreating upstairs.

So what happened?” And this is the right question but not the right tone. It feels more like she’s asking out of curiosity than out of compassion.

Take care, baby brother . . . and I’m sorry this happened.” The thing is, she’s not. Maybe she’s sorry I’m sad, but she’s not sorry he died. She didn’t know him like I did. Did anyone?

Why is this hitting me so hard? Yeah, Jun and I wrote each other. But then we didn’t. I don’t know a single thing about his life in the last few years. He never reached out to me, and I never bothered trying to find him. I only knew that he ran away because my dad casually dropped that fact over dinner, like, a month or so after it happened. All of us—including me—were just like, “Oh, that’s so sad,” and then went on with dinner, went on with our lives.

malungkot ako. In English: “I am sad,” or, “I am down.” But translation is hard—perhaps “tired,” the larger way you use it, is the better word. Tired of my nanay caring only about what others think of our family. Tired of my tatay believing he always knows what is wrong and what is right all the time just because he is a police chief. Tired of the kids at school talking about music and TV shows and celebrities like any of it matters. What is the point, you know? People are sick and starving to death in our country, in our streets, and nobody cares. They worry instead about grades and popularity and money and trying to go to America.

It strikes me now that I’ve never truly confronted that question before, that I never had to. But I’m left to wonder, did my parents’ silence—and mine—allow Jun’s death in some way? Was there anything we could have done from the US?

Jun is gone. And apparently to most people he was nothing more than a drug addict. A rat transmitting a plague that needed to be eradicated. It all still feels so absurd, so unreal.

Don’t stay up too late.” “I have to finish this essay.” “There are more important things in life,” Dad says from the doorway, speaking for the first time. I want to laugh aloud since this is the exact opposite of all they’ve told me my entire life—that school, my education, should be my number one priority. After all, it’s why they brought our family to the US. But I hold it in and say good night.

You must promise not to bring up your cousin while you’re there. It will be too painful for them. Too shameful. They want to forget. To move on. Honor that.

Palimos?” I hear her say through the glass. “Palimos?” “Do not worry, Jay,” Tita Ami says, “she cannot see you. The windows are too dark.” I think of Jun, of all his letters I left unanswered. All his words that mourned how people ignored those in need.

That seems like a lot of work,” I say. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to move into a new house?” She stops short and glares at me. “This is where we have always lived. This is our home. We try to improve it, not abandon it.” The last time my family visited, she and Tito Maning kept making passive-aggressive comments like this about Dad in front of everyone. Though Tita Chato would defend him, he never called them out on it. He’d just look down like a dog that’s been reminded of its place in the pack as the third-born. As a little kid, I didn’t know what was going on between them and nobody bothered to tell me. It was only later, from Jun’s letters, that I came to understand how they resented Dad for leaving.

We drive past the slums every day,” he said to everyone, “and this boy has never actually stepped foot in them. It will be good for him to see how many of his countrymen live. To see how spoiled he is.

I will say three things about my experience: first, it felt good to be doing something for other people. I spend so much time thinking about my troubles that I often feel very bad about life. But when I was handing out sandwiches, it made my problems go away for a time. It made me feel useful to the world in a simple way. Second, the Church may not be all bad. I met one old woman who had been doing this every week for the last forty-eight years. Even if God does not exist, this woman has been doing good in His name so maybe it does not really matter. I only wish the Church were more like her and less like the priests who abuse their powers. Third, the slums were not as bad as everyone makes them seem. There was not as much garbage as I expected, it did not smell as bad as I thought it would, and the people did not seem to be as miserable as I have been led to believe they are. Yes, it is VERY crowded and unsanitary and hot. But people still go to work, they still watch TV and look at the Internet through their phones, they still bathe and wash their laundry, they still have children that laugh and play and cry, they still love their families. Life persists.

I am thinking your tatay has taught you nothing about our history.” I don’t say anything. “Do you know when Rizal was executed?” I shake my head. “How much America paid to ‘buy’ this country? How many the Japanese killed and raped during the occupation?” I don’t say anything. He sighs. “It is a shame. When your kuya was first starting to speak, I said to your tatay, ‘You must teach him Tagalog and Bikol,’ and do you know what your tatay said to me?” “No,” I respond, not wanting to know. “‘The boy does not need to be confused,’” he says in a feminine, mock-American accent meant to imitate my dad. “‘Christian will be going to America, so he needs only good English.’” He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “And what is the result? None of his children knows their mother tongue. And if you do not know your mother tongue, you cannot know your mother. And if you do not know your mother, you do not understand who you are.