I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories.

What were you like," I asked her. "we're you happy? Or were you smiling because they told you to?

Daddy always said that an option that you know to have a bad outcome is only a fool's option, i.e., not an option at all. And I liked to think that Daddy hadn't raised a fool.

It's when you don't need something that you tend to lose it.

Liz looks at the tissue box, which is decorated with drawings of snowmen engaged in various holiday activities. One of the snowmen is happily placing a smiling rack of gingerbread men in an oven. Baking gingerbread men, or any cooking for that matter, is probably close to suicide for a snowman, Liz thinks. Why would a snowman voluntarily engage in an activity that would in all likelihood melt him? Can snowmen even eat? Liz glares at the box.

In the end, the end of a life only matters to friends, family, and other folks you used to know. For everyone else, it's just another end.

Life used to move much more quickly when I was a girl. We needed to abbreviate just to keep up.