Gathering changed me
by Lani Domaloy
The afternoon was equal parts remembrance and reunion…
There are events you attend, and then there are events that attend to you.
The launch of Gathering Our Breath on May 17, 2026 at the Museum of Vancouver was the second kind. I walked in as a contributor. I walked out changed. The afternoon was equal parts remembrance and reunion, held inside a room that had been carefully, intentionally prepared for both.
The doors opened at around 12:45 in the afternoon. The Museum of Vancouver, with its long windows and measured light, held the afternoon gently. Near the entrance, a table had been arranged with ube cupcakes from Cake It Easy, fresh fruit, veggie trays, drinks, and chips. It sounds simple, but it was exactly right. There is something intentional about feeding people before you ask them to feel things. Food is its own form of welcome. It says: Stay a while. You are safe here. It speaks to the natural Filipino hospitality.
People came in slowly, the way you do when you’re not sure what you’re walking into but you came anyway, because something in you knew it mattered.
The Book, the Tragedy, the Why
Gathering Our Breath is a collaborative grief anthology born out of the Lapu Lapu Day tragedy on April 26, 2025. A day that shook the Filipino community in Vancouver and rippled far beyond it. The anthology was created and self-funded by Dani Alcalde-Sidloski, Asia Alcalde-Sidloski, Nathalie De Los Santos, and Maria Bolaños, with support from Place to Be Books, Sampaguita Press, and the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival.
It holds work from writers, artists, photographers, musicians, artisans, and educators from across Turtle Island — over thirty contributors in all. I am honoured to be among them. My article was part of the anthology, and on the day of the launch, instead of reading from it, I offered a prayer. Tito Ted Acuitas asked for a copy of that prayer afterward. That exchange, small as it was, said everything about the kind of room we were in.
The book, as its creators describe it, is meant to be living memory. An altar and an offering. It was always going to be more than a book. The launch reflected that.
A Supported Space
Dani opened the gathering and welcomed everyone warmly. Shortly after, Nathalie reminded the audience that therapists and counsellors were present, should anyone need support during the afternoon. That announcement landed quietly, but it meant everything. It said: we planned for the possibility that this might be hard for you. We planned for you.
I have been to book launches where the vibe is celebration only, where grief is dressed up and kept at a safe distance from the festivities. This was not that. The grief was allowed to sit in the room. It was also allowed to breathe.
That is exactly what the anthology sets out to do, and the launch carried that intention all the way through the afternoon.
Reading and Remembering
Eleven contributors took to the mic: Mak Aruta Konefał, Neema Ejercito, Sol Diana, Francis Arevalo, Carlo Sayo, JP Catungal, Nathalie De Los Santos, Bek, Hari Alluri, Dani Alcalde-Sidloski and myself. Each read from their work and shared something of how the anthology came to them personally. How the writing found them, or maybe how they found the writing in the middle of not knowing what else to do with what they were feeling.
That is the thing about art made from grief. It does not tidy things up. It does not resolve. What it does is make you feel less alone inside the unresolved. And hearing someone read their own words — their own specific, careful, courageous words — does something that a silent page cannot do. It puts a voice to it. It makes it real in a different way.
The arts, and writing in particular, were never incidental to this project. They were the whole point. Creative expression was the means by which this community held itself together and held its losses with dignity.
What the Room Felt Like
I want to try to say this honestly, because a report can only go so far and then it has to reckon with what actually happened between people.
The room felt like community in its truest form. Not the polished, curated version you see at official events, but the kind where people make eye contact across a row of chairs because they recognize something in each other. Where the snacks are a little humble and entirely perfect. Where a prayer can stand in place of a reading because everyone understands that sometimes words need to be offered upward rather than outward.
The Filipino community has a long tradition of holding grief communally, of not making people carry it alone. What Dani, Asia, Nathalie, and Maria built with this anthology, and then gathered us into on that Sunday afternoon, felt continuous with that tradition. It felt like something our grandmothers would recognize.
Copies of Gathering Our Breath were given out free to attendees, while supplies lasted. The book exists as a tangible place of return, something you can hold when social media has moved on and the world expects you to have moved on with it. The launch was an extension of that purpose: a place to gather, to breathe, and to remember that grief shared is grief held.
I am grateful to have been in that room. I am grateful for the work that brought us there. And I am grateful that someone, somewhere, understood that an altar does not always look like an altar. Sometimes it looks like ube cupcakes on a Sunday afternoon, and a circle of people brave enough to show up.
To get a copy of the anthology, visit: Filipino-Canadian Book Festival.
About Lani Domaloy
Lani (Myk) Domaloy is a Filipino-Canadian writer, poet and photographer based on Victoria, BC. She draws inspiration from lived experience, the natural world, travel and the arts. Her essays and poetry reflect spirituality,relationships, love and hope, exploring themes of identity, resilience, and he enduring bonds that sustains. Her work seeks to uncover light and hardships. Where Light Remains is one of her most beautiful pieces, written in response to a tragedy within her community. It affirms the potency of finding healing through shared grief, mobilizing the strength we all carry. Her work appears in Positively Filipino, Medium and other publications. You can find her literary work on
dimpledjourney.medium.com