My mother's last word to me clanks inside me like an iron bell that someone beats at dinnertime: love, love, love, love, love.

The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching’s universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve.

I had to go on without my mother, even though I was suffering terribly, grieving her. My whole life sort of ended when my mom died. I had to remake it again and be a new person in the world without my mom. It was a very primal rebirth, that time after my mom died.

I am an advocate of honesty and openness, and I think deceit is a dangerous seed to plant and let grow in relationships.

What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?

Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren't a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.

Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding