On the outside, I’ve moved into an actual ~dream home~ with Jeff after three years of construction and one million decisions. I spent two weeks frolicking in Europe with my sister, Audrey, and childhood bestie, Margo. I celebrated two years of no evidence of active disease in June and partnered with a small group of incredible stage 4 thrivers to launch something that I think will inject a lot of fun into BCAM for once…but it’s still a secret! I was invited to walk the runway at Cancer Culture’s Body of Resistance NYFW show on September 13th to raise critical funds for metastatic breast cancer research. And, as I write this I am sitting on a couch staring at the ocean. All in all, not bad!

On the inside, I feel like shit a lot. After almost three years on the same medications, nausea suddenly became a daily thing, more hair fell out, and seemingly overnight, 20 pounds settled into my midsection courtesy of early menopause. My feet can’t bear weight in the morning, and starting the day hobbling around wincing just isn’t an invigorating way to begin anew each day.

I know these are relatively small prices to pay for medications that are keeping me alive. I know that with excruciating clarity because I spent much of this summer watching intimate friends struggle and die from this disease. But knowing something could be worse doesn’t necessarily make the thing in front of you feel better.

It’s a wild grief and an inexplicable honor to choose a community you know you will lose, one by one, sooner than will ever be okay.

I also recently completed a six-week ketamine-assisted psychotherapy program, which was overwhelmingly positive and also left me wrung out dry, to the bone. I’ve wrestled with some very uncomfortable questions. I’ve had thoughts and feelings I’m not particularly proud of. I’ve identified a new public enemy #1: biohacking. (A post on this is absolutely coming.) And through all of it, I’ve continued mentoring newly diagnosed metastatic patients, which has a strange way of pulling me both deeper into cancer and outside of myself.

There’s more in there. It’s just still cookin.

So I’m gonna keep the rest inside until it sorts itself out. In the meantime, here are a few things that have been keeping me interested, hydrated, entertained, curious, or sitting in the sun.

WATCH: Time and Water

A gorgeous documentary about melting glaciers, family, memory, and the extremely inconvenient fact that everything we love is temporary. Obviously, this hits some dark truths as we witness and experience the climate crisis all around us, but this somehow manages to stare directly at loss without making you want to crawl into a hole afterward.

DRINK: Tart Cherry Juice and Seltzer

• Fill a glass with ice.

• Pour in 1/2 cup of tart cherry juice or 1-2 tablespoons of tart cherry concentrate.

• If you are feeling fancy, add in your booster of choice - magnesium powder and Miralax for me lol. Stir well.

• Top the glass with sparkling water and gently mix.

• Best before bed accompanied by a sheet mask and some cuticle oil.

READ: “The Car-Crash Conspiracy” — Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker

Staged car crashes. Eighteen-wheelers. Personal injury lawyers. Insurance fraud. Murder. New Orleans. Patrick Radden Keefe takes an already batshit story and slowly reveals something much darker about poverty, exploitation, and who actually assumes the risk when everyone is trying to make money. Long, but an absolute ripper.

READ: “How to Turn a Human Body Into Soil, and Other Things I’ve Learned” — Mallory McDuff, Narratively

This essay is about death, human composting, green burial, and what happens when we stop treating our own mortality as something too morbid to discuss. It hit the same nerve for me as the Right to Die movement: the idea that thinking intentionally about how we die—and having some say in it—can be a profoundly life-affirming thing. I am a member of Death with Dignity and this FAQ page is a great place to start if you want to learn more.

A POEM: The Word — Tony Hoagland

sun worshipping in Chios

HELP MY WRITING PERCOLATE

11/16/1934 - 02/22/2026

Good morning, everyone. For those who don’t know me, I’m Caroline, and Julia was my Grandmom.

Thank you all for being here to celebrate her life. If she were here right now, she’d be waving her hands and saying, “Don’t make such a fuss — everyone has enough going on.” And then she’d probably ask if you’d eaten recently.

For the last few days, I’ve been trying to find the right words to describe what she meant to me. It’s hard, because she wasn’t loud about who she was. She didn’t demand attention. She didn’t curate an image. She simply showed up — consistently, quietly, and with extraordinary strength.

In her final weeks, she worried about getting into heaven. A priest visited her room and unequivocally absolved her of her sins, an easy task. A week later, those fears resurfaced, and when my dad reminded her of what the priest had said, she replied, “But that was a week ago.” In that short lapse of time, after 91 years of living with honor, kindness, and generosity, she was concerned that she may have bragged too much about her grandchildren. If that’s the standard for judgment, then I think she is more than safe.

My Grandmom Julia, who we lovingly call Maggie, was born in Philadelphia on November 16^th, 1934 to Carmella Rossi and Dominic Incollingo, both with deep roots in southern Italy. Those Italian roots were not decorative — they were lived. They shaped her kitchen, her sense of family, her stubbornness, her reverence for tradition, and her understanding that food is not just food — it is love, memory, and identity.

When she was just three years old, her father died, leaving Carmella with three young children during the Depression. As the eldest, Julia grew up quickly. Responsibility was not optional. Strength was not theatrical. It was assumed and essential.

Julia, far right, with her mother, Carmella, and her younger siblings outside the family home, where “Carmella’s Beauty Salon” was painted across the front window. Carmella built a living for her children from that small storefront.

As a teenager at Little Flower High School, she met a slightly older boy in the church choir — our Pop Pop. Their love story began in that choir loft and stretched across decades of devotion. After a honeymoon in Miami — where they bought a set of pastel frosted cocktail glasses — they moved in with her in-laws and began building a life together.

Soon came six children — the first four in just five years. While Pop Pop went to work, she ran the world at home. And when his health failed, she went back to work full time while still running that world. She fought tirelessly to secure his disability after multiple spinal surgeries. She stretched every dollar. She paid the bills, budgeted for groceries, and only then gave Pop Pop his allowance from what was left.

She never framed this as sacrifice. It was simply what needed to be done. She kept a black and white composition book where she tracked every penny in and out. I recall watching her quietly making the math work with tight margins - maybe that is why those pastel cocktail glasses stood out so much in my memory. They sat glistening behind glass, collecting dust over the years, and a sweet reminder of an alternate life she did not live nor miss. Opulence and indulgence were not interesting to her. She retired at the young age of 85.

Her Catholic faith guided her deeply. She believed in service, humility, and devotion. But she was not passive in her faith. She believed in the spirit of Jesus — the servant leader who said, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” She lived that. She did not tolerate cruelty dressed up as righteousness. She had little patience for hypocrisy — political or otherwise — especially when it contradicted the compassion she believed was at the heart of Christianity.

She was devout, and she was discerning.

And then there was her kitchen. Many of you here today had the privilege of knowing her and being fed by her longer than me, but for all 35 years of my life, I and my nine cousins streamed through her door, knowing with absolute certainty that she would be barefoot in the kitchen with something simmering on the stove. Tomato sauce with a “pinch” of salt. Sausage and peppers. The seven fishes. Bread from the bread maker her grandchildren all stared at like it was about to perform a miracle. Sunday morning visits to Hesh’s Bakery. Lawrence Welk reruns after Saturday sleepovers. Trampling her garden looking for ripe eggplants, tomatoes, and zucchini. Overflowing bags of peaches collected from her peach tree. She would carefully slice sweet sticky wedges for us avoiding the holes from when the squirrels beat us to the harvest. She did not tolerate waste. Almond milk stocked in the fridge for years because I once went vegan. She spent so much time in her kitchen, she could grab a piping hot baking sheet or casserole tray from the oven with her bare fingers. Her roasted red peppers, stuffed mushrooms, broccoli rabe, cheese and crackers, her tomato salad, blanched cold green beans with black olives, eggplant parm, chicken cutlets, a pot of decaf brewing and a Jewish apple cake to slow our departures at the end of Sunday night dinners. She was a devout and expert budget shopper but made sure I understood the importance of extra virgin olive oil.

She apologized constantly that there wasn’t enough food — even when ten people sat stuffed around the table. She rarely ate with us, rather she sat at the head of the table monitoring our intake, pointing out whenever she felt someone may have room for one more bite.

That was her love language. Feed them. Worry about them. Make sure they’re okay.

A few weeks ago, my cousins and I surprised her, arriving at her apartment one by one. By chance, other visitors showed up at the same time. My Uncle Ray, cousin Anthony all the way from Texas, and Ben facetimed in from San Diego just a few days after making his own trip back home to visit her. Her apartment filled beyond capacity. People sat on the floor. Fresca cans popped. Voices layered over each other. Below the clatter, I heard her say, “I wish I had more to offer,” despite the pile of pizzas on the table and our unannounced takeover.

I was lying on the floor and, suspecting it was the last time we would all be together, I closed my eyes to take it all in. In that moment I realized — that sound, that fullness, that chaos — that was her life’s work.

She practiced radical kindness. The kind that overlooked faults. The kind that assumed you didn’t know the full story. The kind that forgave before being asked. Whenever one of her loved ones was struggling, she did not, could not, turn a blind eye no matter what it cost her.

She often described herself as a follower, someone who preferred the background. I understand why she felt this, but I think she practiced true leadership. Servant leadership — the kind her Jesus modeled. Lead by serving. Speak through action. Love without spectacle.

I shared these at her 85^th birthday party, but I want to close with five lessons she permanently etched into my life:

1. Quiet love speaks the loudest.

2. Accept flawed people. Not just forgive mistakes — allow people to be human. As she often reminded me, we never know the full picture.

3. Budget so you can always be generous.

4. Not everything needs to be said. When I frequently pushed her to co-sign one a snarky opinion, she would sigh and ask, “What is the point, Caroline?” Especially when I knew she most certainly agreed with me!!!

5. And finally, open your kitchen. There is no more powerful way to tell someone they matter than to feed them. And there is always room at the table.

Maggie may have worried about heaven in her final days. But if heaven reflects the values she lived — humility, loyalty, generosity, devotion — then it has already been shaped by people like her.

We will miss her steady presence. We will miss her food. We will miss her quiet strength. But we carry her with us — in our kitchens, in our loyalty to one another, in the way we show up without fanfare and try to love each other without conditions.

Maggie, thank you for leading us with strength, grace, and love. We love you.

Maggie and I beach bummin.

My brothers and I waiting for peach slices under her epic Magnolia tree.

Maggie and Pop Pop with my Dad, Carmen, a first generation college graduate. LOLing at the high school to college attitude adjustment.

How my Maggie looks in my mind, forever. <3

Honeymoon cocktail glasses.

Mortality, my new omnipresent companion, injected urgency into everything. But more disorienting than the fear of death was realizing how much of life depends on assuming there will always be more time later. Live every day like it’s your last!! My tolerance for bad moods, road rage, even casual complaining about the weather dropped to near zero. When lovely people passively connected by retelling stories from the past, I itched—why aren’t we making something new right here right now?

That itch flooded my system. Right around my diagnosis, my partner and I had committed to a multi-year construction project. Suddenly, I resented every second of it—contracts, finishes, fixtures, bleeding cash and time into something abstract and far away. I honestly didn’t know if I would even be alive to see it finished! I know he was motivated by belief in a future where I was alive and healthy. I believe it helped tether both of us to sanity and I massively benefited from his confidence in me and my capacity for healing. Still, I couldn’t tolerate deferred living. Everywhere I looked, people seemed to be sacrificing the present in service of futures they spoke about with astonishing certainty.

At work, it was worse. Sitting in meetings, watching people trade their time for imagined futures—bigger paychecks, promotions, the vague promise of “later”—and calling it responsibility. I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t participate without feeling estranged from it, like everyone else had agreed to a set of assumptions I could no longer access.

During this reckoning, I read Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. (Read it.) There’s a passage I couldn’t shake:

I reread it over and over and it made me deeply uncomfortable. We treat the present as disposable while obsessing over the consequences of the past and future. Every decision gets loaded with imagined importance until we become paralyzed by imagined versions of our lives. I started to wonder if there was a moral cost to that—not just emotional exhaustion, but the slow abandonment of the life directly in front of us.

This ushered in my GREAT TITILLATING SUSPICION ERA. How do I know what I know? Why was I so confident about about my expectations for my life? What matters? These existential questions are important and reliable companions during most life ruptures and sometimes they are even a little thrilling — the way boundaries briefly blur with an old friend, when you are forced to acknowledge how much space they’ve quietly occupied in your psyche all along but don’t know if they feel the same.

This existential suspicion sharpened and became way less fun when I thought about my treatment. One of my medications costs $211,200 a year. Five year survival rates for my type of cancer are no bueno (<20%). Assuming I’ll be part of that lucky crew, we’re collectively fine spending over a million dollars so I can…what?

Comfortably die?

I don’t know what to do with that.

This April, I went to Living Beyond Breast Cancer’s metastatic conference for the second year in a row. It’s an overwhelming weekend—women flying in from all over the country to absorb research updates, track clinical trials, and navigate the constant hum of grief and hope. It’s loud, crowded, overstimulating. You see who’s missing. You notice who’s struggling more than you. Newly diagnosed women move through the hotel with that stunned, hollow look. You’re relieved not to be newly diagnosed anymore, until you realize the only reason you’ve moved past that phase is because time is passing.

There’s also this subtle social tension—do you go to the pajama journaling event, or do you go downstairs to the bar? Year one, I stayed upstairs, slapping posi-vibe stickers onto a cheap notebook while sweet, kind women chatted, wrote poetry, and bonded in a language I simply do not speak. This year, I went straight to the bar.

Right before a session I wasn’t particularly interested in, I asked my friend Lianne if I could nap in her hotel room because I’d been commuting back and forth and desperately needed a break. She said, “fuck yes,” and came with me.

The second the hotel room door clicked shut, everything softened. My nervous system unclenched. The conference noise disappeared almost instantly—the rolling suitcases, overlapping conversations, clattering of plates and utensils in the main ballroom, the relentless fluorescent energy of hundreds of women trying to metabolize all the feels at the same time. The room was damp despite the loud mechanical hum of the AC and smelled like every other midrange hotel long after their prime.

We collapsed sideways onto the bed without even taking off our shoes, feet dangling over the edge like teenagers at a sleepover. For the next hour we talked about her dating life, about someone in my life who was disappointing me, about all the small humiliations and absurdities that continue existing even when you have cancer. Nothing profound. Which made it feel profound.

At some point I realized neither of us had looked at our phones in a while.

Later, we started getting ready for the evening events. I stood in the bathroom mirror dabbing brown keratin fibers onto the thinning spots along my hairline while she changed in the other room, half yelling through the bathroom door about an upcoming emo night at a dive bar. I told her about the Lily Allen concert I was irrationally excited for. We laughed about outfits, about aging, about the deeply unserious logistics of trying to feel hot while medically exhausted.

And without warning, I felt ease. Real ease. Not gratitude. Not resilience. Not “making the best of it.” Just the feeling of being fully inside a life instead of analyzing it from the outside.

I have a lot of friends because we both have cancer.

Lianne happens to have cancer and is my friend.

Lianne and I at Camp Breastie, June 2025

The next day, after she left, I walked back into my house humming, weirdly excited to water my plants. I clocked a certified pep in my step. And then it hit me, hard—how much I missed that feeling, that ease. That kind of connection. I realized how long I’d been relating to life instead of inhabiting it.

There’s this narrative about cancer and isolation. That people disappear. Friends ghost. People can’t handle it. Thankfully, that has not been my experience—my friends are great. Supportive. They’ve shown up and I love them so hard for it.

But something has shifted. I’ve resisted this, but we just have less in common every day.

Some of that is normal. I’m 35. This is when time starts to show up in your friendships. People move. They pair off. They have kids. They take on caregiving roles. They choose partners you quietly don’t understand. Money becomes weird—trips, dinners, how things get split. It’s all small, but it adds up.

So we do less together.

That drift is already happening, and cancer accelerates it. I can easily point to the logistical culprits, but I’ve had a much harder time reckoning with the subtle psychological drift. I find myself on the edge of conversations, observing more than participating. Kids, weddings, long-term plans just don’t land for me anymore. I don’t think these topics are unimportant, they are just not my reality anymore. There’s grief there, so I don’t go near it, which means I’m also uninformed. Neutral. Detached.

Where I really check out is when conversations turn to careers, money, long-term goals. I used to love that stuff. I used to scheme with friends about shared futures—a lake house, growing old together. Now my thinking is…looser. Less structured. I’ve changed how I earn and how I spend. I travel more. I’m more generous and less panicked by debt. I invest in my body, in experiences, in things that make the present feel more alive. And I don’t necessarily think this is wisdom. If you are brave enough to bring a child into this world, you should probably be thinking carefully about the future in ways I no longer consistently know how to. But I’m not doing that. There’s a strange freedom in loosening your grip on the person you once thought you’d become. But this shift has left me out of sync with my friends, peers, contemporaries. I feel like a visitor at the table.

I smile, I ask questions, I occasionally blab about annoying side effects to earnest nods, but mostly I observe.

I spend more time alone. Sometimes that feels like alignment. Sometimes it feels like avoidance. Cancer is isolating and then I find myself opting out on top of it which feels…counterproductive.

What I want to understand is am I clear on what matters? Or have I just replaced one system of thinking with another?

I don’t have a clean answer. I just know something broke open. I can’t return to the old assumptions I had about time, ambition, or what makes a life meaningful. But I also can’t tell if this new way of seeing is clear or distorted. Maybe proximity to death reveals what matters. Or maybe it simply rearranges importance into another equally incomplete system.

xx c

I have a lot to feel thankful for this season and while I maintain a serious daily gratitude practice, gratitude at Thanksgiving grosses me out. First, fuck a round the table “share something [insert literally any adjective]“. Second, cloying gratitude feels weird on a holiday celebrating a mythical peaceful coexistence while people continue to be violently displaced by the perps and victors of this fateful coexistence. I’m respectfully tapping out of the round table gratitude platitude. Call me the Grinch, idk and idc.

I recently had someone ask me what I did now as a lady of leisure after finding out I am on disability and unemployed. Before I could respond, she emphasized that I really just needed to “find my passion” and take advantage of this free time.

lolol

This ridiculous exchange left me wondering what my passions are. I set a timer for 2 minutes and turns out, I’m not sure there is much difference between passions, things you are grateful for, and stuff you just like. Incomplete and unedited, these are my passions:

• cold grapes

• cozy blankets when its cold

• slipping into bed after a long day

• a warm shower before bed when you are tired and stressed

• sleeping in, when you need it and can take it. but not often.

• the first glass of wine with friends

• strong tannins

• finding a shirt that fits you so well

• clean floors

• rainy days when you can stay inside

• a garden

• wildflowers

• green medians on the highway

• bees

• condensation

• tiramisu

• chai latte on a bitter cold day

• sweating and feeling strong

• chocolate

• ripe pears

• a good book

• watching a lover across the room reading something engaging

• sharing ideas

• kindness

• low lighting

• love notes

• surprise drop offs of something cooked or picked up especially for you

• wrapping gifts

• changing plans

• planning ahead

• being acknowledged for something you worked hard at

• medicine

• acupuncture

• pilates

• snuggles

• a movie or tv series you loved that later has a spin off …Andor and The Mandalorian…for example….

• christmas

• swimming in the ocean or a lake

• campfires

• recliners

• watching documentaries that make you feel things / feel connected to mutual aid and humanity

• trick or treating

• candles

• fragrance free cleaning products

• when an album completely consumes you (“If it has to happen baby do you want to know. If it has to happen, baby, do you want to know? What a fucking LINE LINE LINE LINE LINE LINE LINEEEE.” IYKYK)

• clear scans

• getting credit for things you deserve!!! especially the quiet shit!

I plan to keep this list handy for the next time I bump into the person who recommended I find my passions! COLD GRAPES AND RECLINERS - two things I am truly grateful for.

<3

As the day grew closer, I had increasing anxiety and knew something was up when I found myself sobbing on the corner of Broad & Reed while walking my dog, Josie. I was (am still) afraid that when I hold a microphone up to my face, people see cancer, and scan for signs of illness, or worse, bravery (ick!).

Once I realized all this anxiety stemmed from what other people ~might~ think about me, I realized didn’t give one flying fuck what anyone thought as long as Audrey felt loved.

The wedding was a blast and I nailed the speech. The benefit of having to prepare so thoroughly, is that I can share my toast here. I chose to keep my annotations embedded - a subtle reminder to do what you gotta do to keep rolling.

Cheers!

Good Evening Everyone. I’m Caroline, the very proud older sister of Audrey.

I was six when I found out I’d be getting a third younger sibling. All I knew were my little brothers. I loved them and found them useful props in my choreographed home videos, but a third would have been untenable. My mom tried to console me through my tears by explaining that while she couldn’t promise anything, it could be a girl. At that moment, I chose to love my little sister more than anything in the world. Late on November 7th, 1997, after an evening of anxious pacing at my Aunt Eileen’s house, we got the call.

Audrey had arrived and I fell to the ground in tears. I was so excited. Audrey, you were the first person I actively chose to love in this world - before I even met you. And my love for you has only grown.

I loved you when we shared a room and you kept me up babbling baby talk or crying. I loved hoisting you on my little hip, and taking you into the ocean and going for a walk, anything to parade you around. I was very proud, to the extent that you were my item at 1st grade show and tell.

[pause]

I loved when you would confidently knock on my door when I had high school friends over and ask if you could hang out. I probably scoffed but my friends always overruled my rejection and you became, and still are, part of the crew.

I loved you when, for your 14th birthday, we took the Chinatown bus to Occupy Wall Street in Manhattan, joined a drum circle, and then I came up with the genius idea to take you to a late night basement psychic. You joined in, open to it all, but wisely declined the psychic’s predictions for your future.

I loved you when you quietly showed me the ways you were wiser and braver than me - like going to the high school I hated. You skirted around the nonsense that had consumed me, remained true to yourself and resisted the need for peer approval. It’s no surprise that you came out of those four years with the krispy kremes - a crew of thoughtful, loyal friends who are here tonight.

I loved you when you finally let me take you to get your ears pierced without mom’s permission. [victory fist]. A big win for me.

I loved you when you would visit me in college, steal the number of whoever I was dating from my phone, and a few weeks later, give them a call to “catch up”.

[pause]

I loved you when I strong-armed you into finally “trying alcohol” before you went to college. You said FINE. […mini pause] But only if it’s mojitos. We were in Madrid and passed probably hundreds of wine bars before we found a bar airing an Argentina futbol game. She had 1 mojito and called it a night saying, “Caroline, I know what I am doing.”

I loved you when our ages and life stages meant I didn’t get to see you that often and I loved you when you always gave me the most amount of grace as an imperfect but obsessed big sister.

[Turn to audience]

She gives me very stingy quotes for how often I can give her kisses and pinch her cheeks and tell her how CUTE SHE IS.

I love you when you listen. That’s it. No matter what is going on, you listen so well. You intuitively know when someone needs support, or space, problem solving, or honest feedback. You bring warmth and lightness to every conversation, and transition so well if the subject matter goes deep. I imagine many of you have experienced this emotional intelligence. You never judge, another way you have always been wiser than me.

I loved you when we did Limpia’s. Has anyone heard of a Limpia?

[pause]

Limpia’s are rituals to cleanse negative energy and restore balance, common in South American in the Andean mountains. They involve a healer beating the clients body with nettle, rolling a raw egg all over to draw out unwanted energy, and then interpreting the cracked egg patterns to determine the diagnosis. All accompanied by heavy smudging, prayers, and unfamiliar sounds.This alone is totally cool and likely a great complement to wellbeing for anyone who is not a completely overconfident gringa ding dong.

We were in Ecuador visiting our brother Nathan while he was living there teaching elementary school. I was browsing Reddit for fun things to do, as every normal person does, and stumbled upon a Limpia. I found one. All we have to do is go to the ONE market tourists are ABSOLUTELY not supposed to visit, find a specific stall in the back, walk through that door down a dark hallway and finally up to the roof where a few women have set up outdoor wooden stalls. (Duffey family, think of the slimy wooden outdoor shower stalls at the old beach house.) I was STOKED. I immediately told Audrey to put her shoes on, yelled over my shoulder to my brothers that we were going to the “market”. You asked where we were going and I probably said something like “Shh, don’t worry. It’s gonna be awesome”.

We go - fast forward - we leave…coughing, covered head to toe in horrific nettle rashes and hives, wiping raw egg yolk and shells out of our hair. Audrey spins on me. [pause - attitude] “Caroline what the f was that. I don’t know what made you think I had negative energy to cleanse. This sounds like a Personal Problem.”

I’ve always loved you and I always will. Because loving you is the easiest thing I have ever done. From the moment you entered this life, you have been by my side, supporting and inspiring me in ways that truly reflect the wisdom and maturity you have always possessed.

I also love that you found Dan in college. But… I’m going to be honest - I racked my brain and have zero memories of when and how I first met him. Maybe that’s because it’s the longest most successful relationship any of us have had! He’s always been there, with and for you.

Dan, there will never ever be a way I can thank you for what you have done for Audrey. For your love and support and your kindness. Seeing someone you love and appreciate, be loved and appreciated by someone else in a way you know they deserve […mini pause] is the greatest gift. You are everything I could ever possibly want for my best friend and best sister.

[pause]

Many of us know well that life can flip upside down at any moment, and it’s an immeasurable gift to know that Audrey has someone as caring, dependable, and loving as you by her side. And I know and trust that she will return that grounding support and devotion.

Together, you see and create goodness and beauty in everyday moments. Dan, with a tree, volunteering your time on a non profit youth board.………..[mini pause] savoring Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies, or a good book

Audrey, treating yourself, calling our Mom 1 million times more frequently than me, caring for patients with dignity, regularly saying “toodles!”.

But what impresses me most is your mutual devotion to your friends and family and each other. When I am with you, I feel safe, and seen, and feel no pressure to be anything special or sparkly. You are eternal optimists and two of the kindest people I have ever known. Watching you grow from college sweethearts to husband and wife has been so beautiful. I know you both will continue to choose to love and cherish each other. And […mini pause] I will continue to try and kiss Audrey on the mouth.

Please raise your glass. Congratulations to the beautiful couple. We are so grateful you are ours.

Photograph by Genevieve Huba

This essay was originally published in the October/November 2025 Issue of Wildfire Magazine, Paradox.

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