Between One Death and Thousands

Dearest Community,

Three weeks ago, my uncle died.

He’d been living with stage 4 lung cancer. The oldest of four children, he was my mom’s closest brother and her fiercest supporter. From protecting her against playground bullies to helping her pay for my diapers, he was the refuge she always turned to.

When he got his diagnosis, the doctor told him he had six months—one year at most—to live.

After the initial shock, my uncle decided it was finally time to really live. Like in the movies, he started crossing things off his bucket list. He separated from his wife, rented a one-bedroom apartment, and decorated it to his heart’s content. He refused chemo and instead filled his refrigerator with his favorite snacks and decided to spend his savings traveling with my mom. They partied in Vegas, watched sunsets on a cruise to Mexico, and collected giraffe figurines wherever they went (giraffes, I later learned, were his favorite animal. He wrote affirmations on rocks he foraged from the ocean and learned how to grill fish to perfection every time.

“Thank you, cancer.” He used to say.

“Thanks to you, I get to truly live for the first time in my life.”

His gratitude for cancer felt absurd, offensive even, but to him, it was the permission he needed to be free. Freedom was his medicine, and against the doctor’s grim prognosis, my uncle lived—really lived—for eight more spectacular years.

Over the three days of his funeral, countless people came and went to mourn in community. It was comforting to see how deeply he was loved and remembered. We did our best to honor the life he’d lived and the legacies he left behind.

Every funeral reminds me of the many footprints we leave on others, and how vast the ripple spreads when someone passes.

Still, despite our best intentions, we grow numb to some deaths.

Each morning, I wake to a new death toll in Gaza. It’s hard to make sense of it—the depravity, the inconceivable scale of loss. For more than two years, we’ve watched this genocide unfold on our screens. For more than two years, my body has cycled through various coping mechanisms in search of normalcy, trying to make space for my daily life. Yet the grief remains constant, as do the rage, guilt, desperation, and at times, helplessness.

Grieving my uncle’s death feels wildly different from the persistent, heavy fog of ache I carry for Palestine. It’s an impossible comparison, of course. Despite his disease, or perhaps because of it, he spent the last years of his life with as much agency as he could. In death, his body was bathed and adorned with flowers, and his ashes carefully placed on an altar, ushering him to rest among the ancestors. A painfully stark contrast to Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians remain trapped under rubble, their families’ agonizing cries echoing in the dust.

In a world plagued with white supremacy and imperialism, living with agency and dying with dignity seems like a luxury reserved for the privileged.

Despite the systems’ efforts to dehumanize, I never want to forget that every number behind the death toll represents a human life—each with a universe of stories and a constellation of loved ones, just like my uncle. I never want to forget that each life is sacred and deserving of safety and sovereignty, in life, and in death.

I believe it is up to all of us to defend this truth.

We each have a responsibility to stop this madness. To end the US-funded genocide, dismantle the Israeli occupation and its impunity, and move in solidarity with Palestinians. To honor the martyrs is to fight for a Free Palestine.

Though desensitization can feel like survival, I remind myself that to feel is to be human, and to be human is to be connected. In this lifetime, I choose connection—to my grief and yours, and to our collective struggle for liberation.

In community,

Michelle

Season 1 of I Feel That Way Too wrapped after 7 heartfelt episodes! In just 2 short months, we reached over 25k(!!) downloads as a completely independent production.

Thank you to everyone who listened and left a review. Please keep spreading the love ❤

Episode 1: Am I A Bad Daughter?
On the complicated layers of love, sacrifice, guilt, and resentment within immigrant families with guest, Sahaj Kaur Kohli (@browngirltherapy).

Episode 2: Was I His Love Or A Fetish?
On the tangled web of desire, race, loneliness, and belonging in interracial relationships—specifically those between Asian women and white men, but relevant to many beyond those identities. With guest/friend Christine.

Episode 3: Who Am I Without My Job?
A raw recollection of the collapse of my career after I chose to speak out about Palestine. A love letter to anyone who’s been let go, shut out, or burned out. Anyone trying to find out who they are when the titles fall away. With guest Kelsey Blackwell.

Episode 4: Am I Supposed to Sleep With One Person For The Rest Of My Life?
How to let our most intimate relationships serve as a portal to our desires, wounds, and opportunities for healing and deeper connection to ourselves and each other, with guests Jessica Fern & Leanne Yau.

Episode 5: Can We Be Friends If We Disagree Politically?
Exploration of the grief, shame, and judgment that often accompany political misalignment between friends—and the haunting ways we sometimes punish each other when what we really crave is love. With guest Kai Cheng Thom.

Episode 6: What If I’m Not Above Revenge?
Imagining new ways of responding to harm that don’t replicate the very violence we’re trying to escape while exploring what it takes to heal with Mia Mingus.

Bonus Episode: Live At The Commonwealth Club
Recorded live at the Human Rights Summit, hosted by San Francisco Pride at the historic Commonwealth Club, this intimate conversation offers a rare glimpse into the making of the podcast and the story behind it!

⭐️ Can’t get enough? Watch all bonus interviews here.

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