The Calling
Published on: 04/06/2026
Every ring was a summons. Every ring was a test. I was absolutely, irrationally determined not to answer. All I could think was: don’t pick up. don’t pick up.
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Every ring was a summons. Every ring was a test. I was absolutely, irrationally determined not to answer. All I could think was: don’t pick up. don’t pick up.

April holds the birthdays of my grandfather, grandmother, mother, and father—the four people who shaped my earliest world in our home in Trenton. They were the foundation of my first memories, the faces I learned to recognize before all others, the voices that filled the corners of my childhood.

In my family, Easter meant three things: religion, bunnies, and cured meats—in other words, Catholic, pagan, and sodium.