Acknowledgments

Dear Momma, this book is a love letter to honor our journey. You were and remain my first muse, teacher, and my forever best friend. I wouldn’t be the person I am were it not for your love, and I wouldn’t be the woman I am had you not needed me the way you did. Fighting for your voice ignited mine. Once, we were girls together. Now, formidable women. It is my deepest pride, gift, and joy to walk and grow beside you. I pray that we keep being born for each other, in many lifetimes over. Thank you for being mine and letting me be yours. My love for you is limitless.

Dear Papa, this book is a love letter to honor how far we’ve come. I am who I am for I am your daughter. Thank you for teaching me so much about love, life, and family. Thank you for teaching me the art of debate and cognitive thinking. Those skills have saved me time and again, by allowing me to create emotional distance from painful situations, to look at trauma or heartbreak as an observer, to mine the darkness for art and light. One of my deepest prides in this life is having fought to nurture and achieve authentic closeness with you. My love for you is timeless as the sea.

Dear Dad, this book is a love letter to honor the laughter, lightness, and home you brought into our lives. Until you, we grasped at the meaning of such elements. Until you, I never felt like a kid. You are a gift that surpasses definition. Thank you for being the person I can talk to about the most obscure books, ideas, and films, who is as obsessed and delighted as I am about things most others find mundane. Thank you for bringing Christmas, new beginnings, and hugs into our world. I love you beyond words.

Dear Shehtu, this book is a love letter to honor the immense privilege of being your and Raya’s older sister. Loving you two is the spine of me. My role as your sister is the quality that has informed my life more than any other. Every day, my overriding and underlying goal is to make sure you two are happy and safe. You inspire me continually, with your intelligence, kindness, integrity, ethics, work ethic, calm, and grace under fire. I am so proud of the man you are. Daily, you renew my hope in male-kind. You are the standard to which all others are held. Our towering mountain, steady and mighty. I love you endlessly.

Dear Raya, this book is a love letter that would not be without you. Thank you, infinitely, for asking me the question that led me to answer by writing these pages. Were it not for you, I Am Yours would not have the unclothed vulnerability, immediacy, and intimacy that are so deeply its core. You have always been this: the question that provokes the answer. The world needs your audacity. It is one of your many gifts. Polish, use well and kindly, and never let your fire be taken from you. I am always here, to hold, hear, watch over, protect, and love you. My love for you knows no condition or measure.

Dear Nana Bhai, I love you so much that still, it hurts. Not a day passes that I do not think of you, and I work to do your soothsaying proud. I will keep writing, living, fighting, aspiring, building, creating. Thank you for seeing me so clearly. Thank you for teaching us about kindness, grace, compassion, integrity, and generosity. I know that you can read my words. They belong to you, and wouldn’t be without you.

Dear Naan, I love you so much, beyond any words can aptly describe. You are my lullaby—I love calling you and talking to you, every night. Thank you for taking care of me so well. Your sweet words stay with me every night as I fall asleep, and inspire me to wake, work, fight, and aspire every day.

Dear Mirel, you are our wish come true. You have brought such certainty, joy, and completion to our family. Every day holds peace, now, for I know Shehtu will feel only love, kindness, protection, sweetness, and care, for he gets to journey this life with you. I’m so lucky to call you sister, friend, and fellow writer and lover of books. Thank you for gifting me Wild by Cheryl Strayed, for my 30th birthday. This book would not be without you. I love you so much and then some.

Dear Lidia, beloved mentor, friend, heart-warrior, and misfit. I became who I am because of your words, found and read in your books, years ago. Then, my words led me to you. How perfect and seamless, this love. An indelible bond forged through the power and reach of woman-art. The world knows and loves you for your formidable fire and mind. How I love and revere you for those too. Yet it is the deep embrace, capacity, tenderness, and might of your tremendous heart that undo and renew me daily. My love, respect, and gratitude for you are boundless.

Dear Diana, you are my living angel. How immeasurably lucky I am to know you, to call you neighbor, spiritual mother, sister, and mentor. The bounty of your heart astonishes me daily. Thank you for seeing, hearing, and knowing me so clearly. Thank you for loving me, all of us, so generously. You nourish and give, inspire and raise, so many souls. The world is so much better, having you here. I love you like the flowers admire and gaze upon the sun, thinking, Look at that light.

Dear Lisa, my gratitude, respect, and love for you are immeasurable. Life changed, and I knew I Am Yours would be safe and solid in this world, the second you said, Yes. You were my reach, dream, wish, and I knew we would fit, mind, soul, and vision, the moment I began researching agents. Your grace, acumen, and instincts are unparalleled. You have mentored this book and me. Thank you for trusting me, for taking a leap of faith on an unknown, for reading my audacious query and thinking, this could actually work. Every word and advice you share, I hold as gold.

Dear Nora, nightly, I thank the stars (aloud) for having brought you into my life and the life of I Am Yours. As I Am Yours was my first stab at writing and submitting a manuscript of any kind and length, you were my first editor, ever. Thank you for teaching me leagues about writing, revision, editing. It is so evident, how perfect this path has been: to write first in utter solitude, without any other voice in the room, then, to connect and revise not with just any person, but you.

Lisa and Nora, after our first lunch date in New York, I called my brother and said, “I don’t know how to receive and process all this warmth and kindness—no one’s ever spoken to me, about me and my work, so lovingly. I’m going to have to build a new muscle for this.” My shock and amazement over this phenomenon and fortune have yet to fade. Thank you both for your brilliance, generosity, and kindness that rise and give far beyond the norm. You have believed, so I have, too.

Dear Dayna, the depth and detail of your care, dedication, genius, and heart astonish me daily. I am forever grateful that of all publishers, you are mine. Each day spent in our publishing process affirmed for me that I would not want to have published I Am Yours with anyone else but you and Amberjack. I will evermore sing your praises to the world.

Dear Cassandra, could a more perfect fit between author and editor ever be? I am endlessly grateful that the universe conspired to align its elements so that your path crossed mine, for this precise journey, at this precise time. The similarities and parallels we share are astounding. To know that you understand and feel my story, and me, so deeply, has let me trust you entirely, and this is among the kindest, biggest gifts an author can hope for. Your brilliant pen, exceptional brain, profound wisdom, and deep ocean of a heart inspire me, continuously.

Lisa, Nora, Dayna, and Cassandra, whatever the future holds for I Am Yours, I feel I have already succeeded. I feel complete euphoria, peace, triumph, pride, and gratitude, for I have the abundant honor and joy of walking this path with you. You have my heart.

Dear Jeff, thank you for seeing me so clearly, present and future.

Jason, thank you for starting it all, and seeing the hero within this book.

Rayne and Monique, thank you for taking care of everything so beautifully.

Kayla, Jenny, and Gaby, thank you so much for finding, reading, and championing me and I Am Yours. Jenny, thank you for your wise eyes and caring heart. My boundless gratitude to you all.

Melissa, Patrick, Victoria, Diana, and Juliette. This book says it all. Thank you for being my home. You have my heart, forever.

Jennie, Graeme, and Victory. Thank you for giving me a place to rest my head. Jennie, thank you for teaching me so much. I carry your wisdom, and our memories, always. I love you.

Abe, thank you for being my first reader. Having you to talk to let me know that I was writing to my imaginary best friend from childhood, whom I never released. These pages would not be as they are without your serendipitous presence in my life. The depth and generosity of your spirit inspire me continually. I love you to darn bits.

Lora, you are compassion, kindness, generosity, and grace, personified. I am endlessly grateful to know you. Thank you for loving these pages while they were still finding their way. Your faith and love buoyed mine. Your voice is the sweetest elixir, for a parched and tired wanderer. You have my heart, evermore.

Grandpa and Grandma, thank you for welcoming us home. Laura, thank you for being the first to read I Am Yours, long before I received news of publication. Your faith and love mean the world to me. Shoili, Trudy, Mary, thank you for always being an ear, a hug, and a heart for me to fall into. Russ, thank you for giving me a graduation ceremony. Your heart is unlike any other. Mike, thank you for always knowing, always hearing the story beneath the story. Ashish, my soul-twin, I love, admire, and cherish you more than I can aptly express. Phupu, thank you for paving and encouraging the path. Maheen, Rimona, Charlie, Binni, Shumon, Sonia, Rana, David, and Ratna, thank you for everything. My beloved family, I love you all so much that at times, it nearly overwhelms me. So, I’ll just keep writing, to honor the abundance that is our singular, gorgeous brood.

Srini Rao, thank you for loving I Am Yours, for reading it in two days, for our friendship, and for introducing me to Lisa. Annie Lee, thank you for your enormous heart, for our uncanny bond, and for introducing me to Srini.

My immense gratitude to Literary Arts for selecting me as your 2018 Writer of Color Fellow. Your financial gift helped see I Am Yours through its final stages.

Madeleine Brookman, Sumanah Khan, Scott Edwards, Jeremy Patlen, Elena Katzap, Stef Sifandos, Domi Shoemaker, Jenny Forrester, Jen Pastiloff, Gemma Hartley, Susan Moore, Terese Mailhot, Lilly Dancyger, Hillary Brenhouse, Sarah Clark, Marcelle Heath, Marisa Seigel, Karen Karbo, William Popp, Mahira Kakkar, Rachita Reddy, Leilani Franklin-Apted, Sarah Ingles, Erica Kiefer, Laura Harrison Palmer, Dana Seagraves, Kim Augustijns, Natasha Choy, Brooke Estin, Erika Ellis, Evan Cabnet, Don Lunan, Monica Drake, Abbey Gaterud, Tom Black, Tony Brown. Each of you has played a pivotal role in my life. You have my infinite gratitude, love, affection, and loyalty.

My teachers, in the order we met: Kirt Nieft, Linda Greer-Wegener, Joan Estin, Richard Cameron, Dinah Helgeson, Julie Puckett, Rob Allison, Freda Williams, Mary Stange, Cindy Warner-Dobrowski, and Brenda Perkins. Thank you. You watered the young girl in whom you saw promise. I remember every class, every word, every lesson. My gratitude is as vast as your wisdom.

My faraway sister and mothers. Without knowing, you have helped raise and mentor me from afar. I wouldn’t be the woman, artist, activist, and leader I am without you. Thank you Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, Toni Morrison, Pema Chodron, Isabel Allende, Anne Lamott, Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert, Glennon Doyle, and Brené Brown. My limitless love and gratitude are yours.

And to you, beloved reader, thank you. Without you, for whom would I write, to whom would I speak? This book contains my entire heart. I am yours.