His love for my mother wasn't about looking back and loving something that would never change. It was about loving my mother for everything -- for her brokenness and her fleeing, for her being there right then in that moment before the sun rose and the hospital staff came in. It was about touching that hair with the side of his fingertip, and knowing yet plumbing fearlessly the depths of her ocean eyes.

Out loud I said I had two children. Silently I said three. I always felt like apologizing to her for that.

I wake up very early in the morning. I like to start in the dark, and I never work at night, because my brain is evaporated by 4 p.m.

I wish you all a long and happy life

How could it be that you could love someone so much and keep it secret from yourself as you woke daily so far from home?

Well, as my dad would say, it means she’s out of this shithole.

Heaven is comfort, but it's still not living.