That's the paradox of loss: How can something that's gone weigh us down so much?

Although you hadn't asked why, it had less to do with you not noticing than with you not wanting to hear the answer.

...when people we love make choices, we don't always understand them. But we can go on loving them, just the same. It isn't a matter of comprehension. It's forgiveness.

But you could only remake your own future, not anyone else's, and for some people that just wasn't good enough.

And sometimes, he was less lucid. He'd run around his cell like a caged animal; he'd rock back and forth; he'd swing from topic to topic as if it was the only way to cross the jungle of his thoughts.

Stem cell research has become such a polarizing issue in America... and I wanted to bring it down to the personal level, instead of the political.

They don't like the thought of someone else making demands on the person whom they see as belonging entirely to them.