Abby Ciona

It’s hard to believe it’s not even been a year since I watched my first episodes of Bluey. It was early May, and I was in a hotel with my family. My sister turned on the TV. There are very few shows that all my family members will sit and watch. And we all sat and watched Bluey. And every one of us laughed.

Bluey is not new to the spotlight — it was the most-streamed show in the United States in 2024, coming up from being the second-most-streamed show in the US in 2023 and the eighth-most-streamed show in the US in 2022. The animated Australian kids’ show premiered in 2018 and gained global popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. It only continues to grow its fanbase.

There are many reasons for the popularity of Bluey. It’s colourful and joyful without being overstimulating. It celebrates play and embraces family and all its messiness. Unlike many other preschool-oriented shows, Bluey doesn’t talk down to its audience. The dialogue is genuinely clever, realistic, and not cloying. It doesn’t do the “call and response” of shows that I grew up on like Dora The Explorer or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:

“Do YOU see the purple bridge?”

“That’s RIGHT! It’s just over the GREEN HILL!”

Even as a toddler, that annoyed me.

No, Bluey is something totally different. I would describe it as more of a sitcom than your usual preschool show, focusing on the Heeler family’s humorous and relatable experiences. It spends almost as much time focusing on the parents and their learning as it does on the kids.

Of course, there are some potential negatives to Bluey. It has resulted in kids around the world talking in Australian accents and using Australian slang, much to the confusion of their parents. Other parents have observed their kids imitating the bad behaviours of the kids in the show, and while that is a genuine concern, none of the characters are perfect and that’s precisely what makes them so relatable. Both the kids and the adults have something to learn.

Sure, kid viewers will love Bluey, but adults will be able to fully grasp the humour. Bluey even made The Rolling Stones’ 2021 list of 100 best sitcoms of all time. That’s pretty remarkable for a preschool-oriented show consisting of mostly 7-minute episodes, one 30-minute special and a handful of 1-3 minute “minisodes.”

What drew me into Bluey was the way I saw a younger version of myself in the titular character. When I saw Bluey indecisive on how to spend her money in “Markets,” I thought of the countless times I had been in similar situations. I remembered how my sister and I would collect free paint chips at the hardware store, much like Bluey and Bingo did in “Hammerbarn.” I laughed when Bluey discovered in “The Dump” that her dad had been throwing out her old drawings, remembering when I made similar discoveries as a child.

And perhaps most impactful of all — I saw myself in “Movies.” In the episode, Bluey is at a movie theatre with her Dad and younger sister Bingo. Bluey is hesitant about the movie because of a scary scene, but she manages to watch it and see herself in the hero’s triumph over their struggle. She learns from the hero that it’s okay to be different.

I may be a young adult — a university student studying media production — but I have always been drawn to children and family storytelling. Unfortunately, many cinephiles I know look down on that. Their ideas of “true cinema” are gritty stories, mostly R-rated and morally grey. And despite my friends’ enthusiasm for these movies — like Bluey, I feel like I’ll never like that stuff. I feel different.

But I think that “true cinema” isn’t necessarily what is most popular among critics. It’s what you connect with. It’s where you can see yourself and grow through what you see on screen. That’s something we all need, regardless of whether you’re three or thirty three. Stories that tap into universal truths and make us think shouldn’t be just limited to adults, and stories that teach lessons should not just be limited to children.

I think we all need a little more Bluey in our lives.

You can watch select episodes of Bluey on YouTube and stream the series on Disney Plus.

Abby is a multimedia storyteller creating through diverse mediums. Her photography work spans concerts, conferences, and gallery openings, but she has a particular passion for nature and travel photography and highlighting the hidden beauty in our world. An author of stories, poetry, essays, and articles, she has more than 50 bylines in publications including Faith Today, Keys for Kids, Ekstasis, and Love is Moving.

You can find her on social media at @abbyciona or visit her portfolio at abbyciona.com.

The sliding doors hiss open as I run into the Taipei hospital, breath ragged, heart thudding. A nurse bows her head, her mouth forming an apology I can’t bear to hear. I push past and her words dissolve into white noise–I know it can’t be true. I know I will be able to hear his voice again, feel his calloused gardener’s hands, smell the faint smell of oolong tea and cigarettes on his clothes–

But I am too late. His face is no longer one I recognize–but that of a stranger’s, devoid of life and joy, cheeks sunken and hollow. His skin, once golden from long walks under the sun, hangs pale and waxy like wet paper stretched thin over bones.

Cancer had taken him somewhere I could not follow.

“I’m so sorry,” a nurse whispers, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Your grandfather passed away two hours ago.”

Just two hours, and I would’ve made it in time.

***

Hospital staff murmur their condolences to me. My phone buzzes with missed calls from my teacher asking about my absence. Yet I collapse into silence. The crawling sensation of a thousand tiny needles pierces my skin; the eternal quiet from Grandpa, my fear of death, and the suffocating loneliness all blur together and cloud my thoughts. I no longer hear the shuffle of his slippers at dawn, his teasing when I hide behind my phone instead of going on a walk to Family Mart with him.

Our relationship had been a patchwork: every-other-year visits to Taiwan, handwritten letters, and care packages filled with special ramen flavors I couldn’t find in America. But what roots itself deepest in me is his voice–off-key, raspy, yet joyful and unapologetically alive.

What I remember: Grandpa slipping creamy niú gá táng candy into my hand when my mom wasn’t looking. Letters from Taiwan, addressed to me in his shaky handwriting, adorned with tiny doodles of fruit and street cats. His reassurance that the chemotherapy treatment was working.

What I don’t remember: His cough deepening into a wet, rattling sound that scraped his chest and brought up blood. Bones pressing sharply beneath skin that bruised at the slightest touch. The yellowing of his skin, his eyes, his nails, even his teeth. He died two years earlier than the doctors had predicted. He hid the truth from us, protecting us from the weight of his pain until the very end.

***

I’m fourteen again, crying after my grandpa’s cancer diagnosis, cheeks sticky with tears, my nose red and raw from rubbing it on my sleeve. Though the doctor says he has four years left, nothing seems to have changed. The kitchen smells like ginger, garlic, and the faint, smoky sweetness of his tea. Grandpa hums as he folds dumplings, dough creasing beneath his fingers.

“Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Que sera, sera,” he trills, his voice wobbling off-key.

“Grandpa,” I say between sniffles, “that’s not even the right tune.”

He ignores me and instead, ladles dumplings into my bowl, careful not to let the soup spill over. The kitchen lamp casts streaks of gold across my face, warming my cheeks. I bite into a dumpling and savour the pork, chive, and hot soup that oozes from the tender dough. For a moment, the ache inside me loosens.

“Aren’t you sad?” I whisper, unable to understand how he could still find joy.

“Sad?” he echoes. Then, slowly, he shakes his head. “I have my garden of dragon fruit cacti, delicious bao zhi and dumplings to feast on, and a granddaughter to make me laugh.”

I stare at him and say, “But you’re sick.”

He sets down his chopsticks and takes my hand, his thumb brushing over the back of it like wind through a field. He points to the peach tree outside his apartment window.

“Every winter, it looks dead,” he says. “But underneath, it’s still alive, waiting for the right time to bloom again.” His eyes crinkle. “I think I’m like that tree. And even if I don’t see another spring, I know you will. And you’ll remember.”

He hugs me, and even though I don’t completely understand what he means, a smile colored with a thousand different shades of bittersweet memories slowly rises to my mouth.

***

Two hours–just two hours–if my mom and I had known that he really wasn’t getting better, that it really wasn’t four years left but two, if I had really listened to Grandpa’s voice that sounded thinner after each call instead of nodding distractedly while chasing the things I thought mattered at the time–like college and careers and bullet points on a résumé to build a life when I hadn’t even thought about what I truly wanted–if I had paused to ask for time off or noticed how quickly he was fading with cells mutinying in his body, his camera off because his face was too gaunt, because he couldn’t swallow food–maybe I would’ve realized what was happening. His death was so sudden, even the doctors were surprised. But maybe I would’ve made it in time. Maybe I would’ve been there in time to talk to him one last time, and maybe I would’ve understood earlier that dumplings made with love and stories told under a yellow kitchen light mean more than anything I could earn or win or prove, but I didn’t.

Now I sit beside my mother on a plane back to the U.S., tracing the wrinkles in her tear-streaked hands while the hum of the engines fills the silence between us. I think about how the peach tree outside his apartment will still bloom this spring, even if he’s not there to see it, and how he didn’t want the weight of cancer to reach me. But all I feel now is the weight of a silence I can never fill, because no amount of remembering will bring back the warmth of his hand, or the sound of his voice, or the crinkle of his eyes when I laugh.

So I sit, above the clouds, the cold air wrapping around me. My mother sleeps beside me, her lashes still wet. I think about the things I should’ve said to Grandpa, the hugs I should’ve given, the songs we should’ve sung together. I think about those two hours I was too late. I gaze out the airplane window, the clouds below a blur of blossom pink and mourning gray. And somewhere between heaven and earth, I softly whisper, “Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.”

 Grace Ji is a homeschooled rising senior with academic interests in engineering, history, and political science. Her writing tends to focus on analyzing U.S. policies or personal narrative essays.

In a world where everything that is even a little interesting or funny is recorded for all of social media to see, I believe that when something happens and is not being recorded, the experience is so much better. That being said however, I would like to share one of the funniest experiences I had in South Africa.

We throw open our uber’s doors, saying a quick thank you, stepping out into the hot, South African sun. We are already extremely hot and sweaty, due to the fact that we had already visited Table Mountain earlier in the day. However, Table Mountain is not is not the subject of this story.

We exit the car and walk up to the ticket booth to buy entrance tickets to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. We buy our tickets as well as a map of the gardens, and the sun continues to beat down on as we enter the gardens. Since the sun is so bright, we decide to stick to the shadier trails. We start our walk by going to the most recommended trail, a “sky bridge” (it’s just a wooden bridge) that goes through the tree canopy. The birds in the park are very loud, and no matter where you go, you can probably hear them. We continue to walk along this bridge until it ends and goes into a gravel trail. The trail is surrounded by hundreds of various flowers and bushes, I’ve never seen so many different plants in one place.

We notice that it is a little past noon, so now we can finally take a break from walking and have some lunch. It takes about five minutes for us to walk along the trail to the tea house that sits near the back entrance of the gardens, and when we get there they immediately seat us at a shady table. By the time we sit down, we’re all hot, sweaty, and really hungry. I know the moment that I sit down that I am pretty sunburned, and that those will definitely hurt tomorrow. I’m sure that the servers think that I look like a tomato, though I know they’ll never say it (petition to servers at outdoor restaurants to tell customers when they look like tomatoes).

The moment we sit down, we immediately realize how thirsty we are. While we did have water bottles, the water had become hot, not room temperature, but hot. Because of this, I hadn’t really drank enough water (I am indeed one of those Americans who doesn’t drink as much water when it’s not cold, trust me I am not proud of it), and was desperate for some ice water. We order ice water for all of us, as well as a pitcher of mint-infused lemonade and our server goes back to the kitchen to get them for us.

Since this restaurant is technically a tea room, one of the things on the menu was a “tea experience”. This experience came with tea of your choice, scones, biscuits (american biscuits), two little cakes of your choice, and other various baked goods. All this said, the table that was directly across from us had ordered this “tea experience” and right after we ordered our drink, another server brought out a tiered tea tray with all of their baked goods on it and set it on their table.

Soon enough, our drinks are brought out and our server takes our lunch order. It is at this moment that I first notice the pheasant that has hopped over the low fence separating the gardens from the tea room. It is lurking around tables, eating the crumbs from peoples meals. This pheasant is not the only bird loitering, but it is by far the biggest one there. I watch as it slowly walks around the restaurant, hoping for some more food to be dropped.

One of the servers notices the pheasant and shoos it away, only for it to just stand on top of the fence. I can tell that it is at this exact moment that the pheasant notices the table across from us’s conglomeration of baked goods. Some of the other birds have also begun to notice the tier tray of goodies and are now standing around this couple’s table, invading their personal space.

In the blink of an eye, the pheasant that was perched on the fence flies up and attacks the tray of bakery items, causing the tray to fall over, covering one of the people in whipped cream. The other birds that were hanging out around the couple fly up and take their choice of the food on the table. They all grab as much food as their grubby little talons can possibly hold and fly off over the fence. The pheasant, however, just stays on the table eating like he had paid for this meal.

Having heard the commotion, a server comes out of the kitchen wielding a broom like a baseball bat. She swipes at the bird, who then takes one of the scones and flies off towards the rest of his friends. For a few seconds, everyone in the restaurant is silent, in awe of what just happened. But not long after the pheasant leaves, almost everyone (except the person covered in whipped cream) bursts out laughing. The server says that the pheasant and the other birds hang out here a lot, but have never actually done something like that before.

They move the couple to a different table and bring them some replacement food. The man covered in whipped cream disappears into the bathroom, presumably to come to terms with what just happened and to wipe off the cream (he comes back after a few minutes). A group of servers come out of the kitchen area and begin to clean up the mess the birds made. Thankfully, the birds didn’t break any of the glass cups that were on the table, making the terrible job of cleaning that table up just a little easier.

Soon after this whole ordeal is over, our server comes back with our lunch order, looking like she would be happy to go home and forget the pheasant who had made her day a lot harder. We eat our grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, still laughing about the Little Nuisance who attacked a tray of baked goods with the rest of his bird army.

Bethany Webb is a young writer with a love for exploring the world. She has previously been published in The Behemoth’s debut online magazine, and has won a poetry contest held by Creative Communications.

I hold a ghost at night, my arms outlining your body, your bones that I will always remember feeling. I pretend the corner of your pillow is your shoulder, pressing it into my neck and telling it I love you and goodnight. Some nights, when it’s really bad, I call Bubbie or whisper for Dad, knowing neither of them will hear me that late. Then I cry, remembering the nights you crawled out of bed, having heard me from the other room. Baby, you’d say. It’s going to be okay. Everything passes. But this is everything, I think, no longer knowing what it passing would mean.

When Devan and I go back to school, I try to imagine you’ll be back home. I think I start to believe in a soul too, or something spiritual. Sometimes I speak to you in my head, as if you’re still with me. My brain thinks of systems that don’t exist, and I begin to understand the appeal of religion, the ease of it. I try to build my own, with requirements and practices too. You’ll only hear me, I think, if I call you by your full name. Or would it be your Korean name? Or maybe you’ll only see me when I’m on our couch, so I have to tell you about my whole day there. I think maybe these rules are my reluctance to believe you’re actually there, my hesitation not even fully realized, hidden within my effort to see you. I think of texting you, but don’t want to ruin the last pages of text messages we have either. I tell Dad I don’t know what to do. He says he doesn’t either. We hold each other, and I wonder if he pretends I’m you, too, as his tears fall into my hair.

It’s better for a little. I become too busy to cry, guilty for this but without time to feel the guilt. I tell myself I’m bringing you with me, but I don’t know if I am. I hold on to the last thing I want to remember you saying. You have to be open to it, okay? I’m going to fight so hard to stay with you guys. To see everything you do. I promise. I tell myself the truth, that the universe is so big, and if stars are out there, something as small as a single person can be too. I try to use logic to justify your existence, for some reason not allowing myself to just believe. I don’t know why I am unable to separate the possibility of your ghost from Christianity or Hinduism or Judaism or any other established religion. I don’t know why believing in one of them would upset me.

I think back to Baba and Dad, who have always said that after death, is nothing. I see Dad struggling to find you too, to rebuild his brain, to disown the absence he’s believed in his whole life. I think of you, who always said, until the last week, that you didn’t care what we did with your ashes, because dead people can’t feel. I think of the convenience in believing now, a convenience I can’t overlook but try to push aside. It works for some time. Over the next few weeks, I think I am able to feel you in my head and at home. I don’t know what I imagine you as, but I do believe in the possibility of you being here.

Then on my birthday I can’t find you. The system I crafted, the soul I invented, disappears and I sit in your bathroom alone, the mascara you bought me smeared on my palms. I open your phone to look at pictures, and see that Devan’s texted you. I’m 14. He says. Ella’s 16. I miss you. I look in the mirror and realize you will never know me at 16. I hold my cheeks and it occurs to me that just as I don’t look like my five-year-old self from your pictures, there will come a time when I no longer look like the version of me that you knew. I realize that maybe, in a few years from now, if you ran into me on the street, you wouldn’t know me. I cry that I will never run into you on the street. And then I can’t breathe and I can’t find the last video we took when you could still talk, and Dad is coming in the bathroom and I’m kicking my legs and it’s like I’ve remembered for the first time that you’re dead, like I’ve finally realized the definition of death.

I start seeing a therapist the week after that. She lives in California, so I see her on Zoom, her greenscreen filter displaying a Santa Barbara beach at sunrise. It reminds me of Moonlight beach in San Diego, the one we went to every summer. I ask her why it’s hard to remember you sometimes, to feel your presence or whatever it’s called. She tells me that sometimes our brains block out the good times, the times when it was easy, because it doesn’t hurt as much to miss something that wasn’t that good to begin with. I tell her I think I’ve blocked out the bad times too, and feel guilty again.

I do everything to feel better, except think about you. I stay up until two am, scrolling on TikTok or studying my body on Instagram, just to drag myself out of bed at six thirty the next day, and still end up late to school or wherever I need to be. I do just enough to keep an A in my classes, something you were always proud of me for and that prevents anyone from asking me what’s wrong. I sign up for activities I don’t have time for, volunteer to lead fundraisers or say I’ll submit my writing to places whose websites I haven’t even opened. I’m failing, I say, to friends, who ask what grade I really have. Dad can’t tell either. Your soul, spirit, “new form”, visits me less now too. I’ve lost faith, I think, in the religion you and I had. Christians are in the news for cutting cancer research, families are being removed from this nation under God, and kids are dying because they blame vaccines. It’s not connected, but I shame myself for creating an image of the supernatural, for believing in hopeful hallucinations instead of science.

One night though, I remember the worry fairy. I remember the way you used to take my hands, your thin, always-moisturized fingers wrapping around mine as you told me to pass my worries onto you. I remember the sound of your voice, the look of your eyes softly closed. As I remember, your soul returns, a ghost of some sort.

After that, I think I do start healing. I still don’t know if you’re here, but I get back the days when I feel less insane talking to you. I realize it one day, when I’m in the kitchen, listening to your playlist and “Sometimes” comes on, Britney Spears singing the lyrics we first read together in your room. I remember the exaggerated, dramatic, pained faces you made as you mouthed the chorus, and find myself making them too as I dance over a fried egg.

I cling to that song for the next month, repeating the chorus each night as I press your pillow into my shoulder, mouthing the words in the mirror as I get ready, knowing, somehow, that you’re watching too. It doesn’t last though. I think I can tell, the way I begin to force myself to go through the lyrics at night, added to my night routine as something I have to do, but don’t really believe in, like those years we tried to celebrate Hanukkah. So, same as the worry fairy, its effect wears off, and memories become hazy enough that any effort to speak to you feels forced, and within a month, useless. I think of telling Dad, your last text to me to ask others for help, because I used to only ask you. But one night, when we’re watching How I Met Your Mother, nearing the end, he hugs me from the side, smiling.

 When I die, he tries to tell me. That’s not funny, I say. When I die, in a very very long time, I want you to place some of my ashes with hers, he says. And I think I see then, in the look on his face and in his words, that he no longer questions if there’s something after death. He finally believes that you’re here.

And so I smile back, that night returning to not crying until I know he’s asleep. I think I feel alone, him and you existing together in a world I have yet to have faith in.

Ella Upadhyay is a junior at Brookline High School. She’s a co-founder and editor-in-chief of World Insane Literary Magazine and loves writing short stories, baking, and spending time with her friends.