A Love Letter for Myanmar

Myanmar helped me come to terms with grief. Now I am grieving for Myanmar.

Image of pagodas in Kayah State, Myanmar. Photograph by the author © Will Buckingham

I arrived in Yangon for the first time in January 2017, my life broken into pieces. The previous year had been punishing. In August, Elee, my partner of thirteen years, died of breast cancer. Before her death, we talked about what I would do after. I said I didn’t know. ‘You should get away,’…