My father had not been outside the house except to drive back and forth to work or sit out in the backyard, for months, nor had he seen his neighbors. Now he looked at them, from face to face, until he realized I had been loved by people he didn't even recognize. His heart filled up, warm again as it had not been in what seemed so long to him- save small forgotten moments with Buckley, the accidents of love that happened with his son. ~pgs 209-210; Buckley, Lindsey and Jack on Susie

Who would have thought something that happened that long ago could have such power?

but, he also said it because part of him wanted more of her, this cold woman who was not exactly cold, this rock who was not stone.

I missed her then but it was an odd sort of missing because by then, I knew the meaning of forever.

What did dead mean, Ray wondered. It meant lost, it meant frozen, it meant gone.

I was in the air around him. I was in the cold mornings he had now. I was in the quiet time he spent alone. I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. -Susie Salmon

I like gardening - it's a place where I find myself when I need to lose myself.