Excerpt from Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

For those who left, it is remittances. It is balikbayan boxes. It is donations after every typhoon, every eruption. It is massive multilingual family group chats. It is saying yes to being ninong or ninang to children you've never met. It is flying across the world for weddings and funerals and worrying about the savings account or credit cards later. It is the shame of missing weddings and funerals because the savings account is empty and the credit cards have reached their limit.

It is beautiful. It is burdensome.

It is the glue of community, the weight of obligation.

Chris also sighs. Nods. "Utang na loob."

Excerpted from Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay. Copyright © 2024 by Randy Ribay. Excerpted by permission of Kokila. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.