You know, I thought about that a lot these last couple of years," She says in a choked voice. "About who was there for you. Who held your hand while you grieved for all that you'd lost?

There are like twenty people in that waiting room right now. Some of them are related to you. Some of them are not. But we're all your family.' "She stops now. Leans over me so that the wisps of her hair tickle my face. She kisses me on the forehead. 'You still have a family,' she whispers.

Traveling is not something you are good at. It is something you do. Like breathing.

What would you do if you had to choose?

Sleep would be so welcome. A warm blanket of black to erase everything else. Sleep without dreams. I've heard people talk about the sleep of the dead. Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that's what it's like, I wouldn't mind. If that's what dying is like, I wouldn't mind that at all.

Everyone has hardship in their life. Everyone has pain.

Because I understand all the ways of trying to escape, how sometimes you escape one prison only to find you've built yourself a different one.