A heroin-thin boy with enough rings in his eyebrows to resemble a shower curtain rod.

Some people don't know what to do with an act of kindness.

What’s the difference between spending your life trying to be invisible, or pretending to be the person you think everyone wants you to be? Either way, you’re faking.

The nurses, I have already learned, are the ones who give us the answers we’re desperate for. Unlike the doctors, who fidget like they need to be somewhere else, the nurses patiently answer us as if we are the first set of parents to ever have this kind of meeting with them, instead of the thousandth.

If he says jump, she doesn't even ask "How high?" She goes out and buys a pogo stick.

I didn't think i could possibly love another baby as much as I loved the one I'd already had," I continue. "But the strangest thing happened when I held you for the first time. It was like my heart suddenly unfolded. Like there was this secret space I didn't even know existed, and there was room for both of you." I stare at her. "Once my feelings were stretched like that, there was no going back. Without you, it just would have felt empty.

Joseph Obomsawin, the elder I lived with there, says that those who turn to animals do so because humans have let them down.