Her Voice Memos and My Grief

A Friend’s Digital Messages in a Bottle Carry on a Centuries-Long Tradition of Auditory Remembrance

One of my best friends died recently.

It still doesn’t feel real. The last time I saw her was the day after the Fourth of July. Her smile always lit up the room, but that night, the joy seemed to seep out of her, so much so that even the person who took our order at dinner commented on it.

Life was coming together. She’d gone back to school to become a speech-language pathology assistant and was on track to complete her program in the fall. Unfailingly patient, positive, and compassionate, her …

The Bridges My Father Built

A Lifelong Educator, He Left Behind Many Legacies—Including a Suspension Bridge and a Bust of JFK I Spent Years Trying to Find

In the 1960s, my father’s crowning achievement was building, entirely by hand, a 60-foot steel suspension bridge over the lake at Camp Pontiac, the summer camp his family owned in …

Now Entering Make-Believe Country

Urbania, My Imaginary Land, Gave a Weird, Curious, and Somewhat Lonely Kid a Shorthand for the World at Large

Last year, my friend Jesús passed away when he was hit by a car while riding his bike. He was one year older than me. We both had been college …

A Letter From India, Where the World Is Collapsing | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

A Letter From India, Where the World Is Collapsing

The Official Count of Cases and Deaths Doesn’t Reflect the Full Tragedy Unfolding Here

Every morning, I wake up in my home in a middle-class locality in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India, and heave a sigh of relief. I do not have temperature; …

Contemplating the COVID Carnage at California’s Most Historic Cemetery | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Contemplating the COVID Carnage at California’s Most Historic Cemetery

Sites Like Forest Lawn Do More Than Bury Our Dead—They Keep the Present in Perspective

If you’re having a hard time processing the scale of death produced by the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re not alone. In the face of mass casualties, many of us have chosen …

Will Holograms Help Us Grieve? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Will Holograms Help Us Grieve?

Ready or Not, Digital Afterlives Are Here to Stay

Long before Kim Kardashian West made headlines for being gifted a hologram of her deceased father for her 40th birthday, a panel session at South by Southwest Interactive, an annual …