I like to think of April 25, 2015 as the day my life unraveled like a yarn ball. A lot of things shifted and changed, but those stories of love, loss and heartache, they live with me like seeds germinating the stories I tell. Below, I’ll post snapshots of stories #Nepalearthquake

Here’s a man I’ll never forget. I met Sarki Bika, then 80 in the army hospital. He carried this bloodied black coat. He had dug his wife out of a landslide, and was later airlifted to Kathmandu. “I don’t know of a life without her,” he said. He spoke of nothing but her.

This is Jethi Surkheti, in Arupokhari, Gorkha. Surkheti had lost her house and had her makeshift kitchen outside a tin wall. She wouldn’t let me go insisting, “in our village we don’t let people go without eating”, and took out her special place for guests and served me food

Manmaya Tamang, then 31. I met her in Bir Hospital. Tamang from Sindhupalchowk had suffered a pelvic fracture from trying to save her 10 day old baby. “I ran to save him but I couldn’t..”, “im still a sutkeri..” she told me.

Santa Mendo in Bir Hospital. “I’m neither dead, nor alive,” she said, grieving the death of her son.

A view of Kathmandu in the aftermath of the earthquake. I don’t remember where I took this but this was a common sight

The most heartwarming stories however were of volunteerism. There was a team outside Bir Hospital, made up of young people ( their roster was filling/ flooding even). These young people, 18-19 years of age took care of the injured who were airlifted and had no families in Ktm.

There were volunteer efforts in every cluster, every neighborhood I went to. Some helped clear the rubble, others took care of the old and children. There were free meals, an outpouring of donations, and a spirit that bought Nepalis together as a whole, not divided by politics.