When I first told my mom about my idea to apply for a Fulbright scholarship to study cancer in Sicily, the site of her birth and childhood, she said somberly, “I have a feeling you’re going to go. It feels like it’s already done.”
This is how we spoke about these things. When I was in kindergarten, the little boy who sat across from me looked at my 6-year-old arms and said, “Why don’t you shave all that hair?” My mom made me promise that I never would, and I have kept that promise.