My son turned 24 today, and for the first time in a long time, I did not celebrate his birthday without him. I need you to understand what a strange sentence that is for me to type. There was a time when Vicente came to his own birthday parties. SpongeBob cake, a piñata, a kid who hadn't yet been handed the keys to his own life and didn't know he could refuse. Vicente showed up because showing up was still someone else's decision. He didn't know he had a choice. Then he got o

I married Frankie on a Tuesday, because that’s when the courthouse has less people. We got our marriage license a week before, and on Tuesday we both showed up on our lunch hour and said our awkward I dos. It was all very administrative. After we got married, I went back to work. I’m a teacher. He’s a mechanic at a Ford dealership. That day, we ate Jack in the Box, because that’s his favorite. He got some sweet bread from La Reynera. There was no party. No guests. No invitati