Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her.

Grief doesn't necessarily make you noble. Sometimes it just makes you crazy, or primitive with fear.

You can’t change the tale so that you turned left one day instead of right, or didn’t make the mistake that might have saved your life a day later. We don’t get those choices. The story is what got you here, and embracing its truth is what makes the outcome bearable.

the mother's first job is to raise a daughter strong enough to outlast her.

The truth, or success, of any writer's story lies partly in its specificity and its emotional honesty.

Hope in the beginning feels like such a violation of the loss, and yet without it we couldn't survive.