““The differences were plain enough, and yet I saw that they were as nothing compared with what we had in common. As I lay in bed at night, the sky outside my window reflecting the city's dim glow, I thought about Abuelita’s fierce loyalty to blood. But what really binds people as family? The way they shore themselves up with stories; the way siblings can feud bitterly but still come through for each other; how an untimely death, a child gone before a parent, shakes the very foundations; how the weaker ones, the ones with invisible wounds, are sheltered; how a constant din is medicine against loneliness; and how celebrating the same occasions year after year steels us to the changes they herald. And always food at the center of it all.””
![“I am growing to love DC.This [Washington] is a beautiful…” quote by Sonia Sotomayor](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/8c2/sonia-sotomayor-1504_beautiful_i-am-growing-to-love-dc-this-washington_168973.jpg)
