As I shared in my last story, My Lucky Star: Final Tributes to my Mother, my 88-year old mother died two days before this year’s Thanksgiving. She was a pioneering spirit who boldly followed her dreams and didn’t take No for an answer. Decades ahead of her time, she, a…

My mother, Josta, peacefully transitioned to a better place at the blessed age of 88 just two days before Thanksgiving. It gave me and my immediate family members the opportunity to say goodbye to her and bring closure to her long struggle with a degenerative disease. Only after I’d called…

In Suriname, we call this holiday Keti Koti. Cutting of the chains. It has been celebrated since the abolition of slavery on July 1, 1863, but has been a national holiday since 1960. I think it’s important to imagine what life could have been like for you and others if…

Michelle Williams, dean of the faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, recently declared that racism is a public health issue and that public acknowledgment of this harmful legacy of slavery is long overdue. She goes on to explain that the pandemic alone “is killing black Americans at…

(Source: Unsplash Jason D) Many highly sensitive people (HSPs) realize as early as in kindergarten (me!) that something is not quite right. I shed more tears than my siblings, friends, and cousins combined, and was flat-out told that these tears were ‘crocodile tears’ and not real. Why? …