I found out that my brother died on August 22, 2025. In the heartbreaking months that followed, I couldn’t get myself to release the kind of soul-shattering cry that knocks the wind out of you. The one that leaves you completely hollowed out.
Who could I even cry to? My mother or father, who lost their baby boy when he was only 30-years-old? My older brothers, living thousands of miles away? My youngest sister, who I couldn’t even call until hours after I learned our brother was gone? So I didn’t cry, and I didn’t grieve. Instead, I organized. I made spreadsheets and budgets. I held everyone else together the only way I knew how. I postured as “the strong one”—a role I know only too well as the eldest daughter in an immigrant household.
By the time November rolled around, I still hadn’t sobbed in a way that felt like relief. There were days when my grief didn’t feel any better, and plenty of days where it felt so much worse. Unsure of how to move forward, I decided to attend a performance called Prieto: A one-person show by Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Yosimar Reyes about grief, humor, and growing up queer and undocumented. Unsure what good it would do, I was intrigued enough to try it. Something in me must have known that I needed to place myself inside a room built for release—with people who didn’t know me or know my brother; much less grieved him. Otherwise, I might never be able to let go.
A poster for Prieto stood by the entrance to the theater. At the center, a silver shopping cart with a red trim represented the years that Reyes and his late grandmother spent collecting cans for cash. A small detail, but one that told me everything I needed to know about what was in store: Resilience, tenderness, and the kind of humor you develop because of hardship, not despite it.
The lobby was buzzing with people who understood the emotional state we were all about to step into. It was the calm before a collective storm that I was, strangely, ready to weather. As we filtered into rows of seats, low lights rippled across the walls in soft reds and purples and golds. A familiar bass line thumped quietly under the chatter. As if to show the universe was playfully sticking its tongue out at us, Juvenile’s Back That Azz Up played through the speakers. (A get-the-party-going moment if there ever was one.)
When Reyes walked out, the room fell silent—out of reverence, not politeness. His presence does something to a space. He’s funny, but not frivolous. Tender, but not precious. He’s a storyteller who knows exactly how to lead an audience through grief without drowning them in it. Early in the show, he joked that he knew he was gay because of Family Matters and Moesha, and the entire room erupted in laughter. Minutes later, he recounted being sexually abused as a child and the room tightened. We held our breath. But then he gently reminded us to exhale by folding his vulnerability into humor. Towards the end of the show, Reyes spoke directly to his late grandmother as he listed everything he missed about her. And even though it went on for a few minutes, it didn’t seem long enough. “I miss your [belly]. I miss your [braids],” he said. “I miss your laugh.” I felt a pang for my own brother’s laugh; his dark humor and his playfulness.
At one point, I realized Reyes wasn’t just performing. He was guiding us. With every laugh, every gasp, and every silence, he conducted the room like an orchestra. We were each playing the tune of our own grief, but together, it sounded like music. And it felt like healing. In that dark theater, surrounded by strangers who somehow related to what I was carrying, I dropped my shoulders and my jaw became unclenched. I heard people around me sniffle and lift their arms to wipe their tears. And then I cried. For real.
Afterwards, the audience rose to its feet in a standing ovation that sounded less like applause and more like a release. As we spilled back into the lobby, it felt like we had purged something together. I felt lighter. Not healed. Not repaired. Not quite “okay”—but lighter. As powerful as the performance was, Prieto didn’t erase my grief, but it did make it easier for me to navigate. There was a collective energy of shattered hearts in that room and Reyes carefully led us to a promised place in order to reap a sense of catharsis.
On my drive home, I thought about my brother. How lighthearted and funny he was, how much he loved a good party, and how dancing always loosened him up. Most of all, I thought about how he believed, at his core, that having fun was the best use of time. It was then that a few truths settled over me like a hand on my shoulder: I’ll never get my brother back, but he’d be pissed if I didn’t get my joy back either.