Maybe a mother wasn't what she seemed to be on the surface.

My teacher in first grade said that long ago people used to believe all kinds of things, because they didn't know any better. Like you shouldn't take a bath, because it could make you sick. And then someone saw germs under a microscope and started to think differently. You can believe something really hard, and still be wrong. (Faith White)

Forgiveness is spiritual. Punishment is legal," Leo says. "They're not mutually exclusive.

I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.

Having a fantasy come true doesn't always mean it will be permanent.

In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who loses a child.

There is a reason the word belonging has a synonym for want at its center; it is the human condition.