Wheather it is conscious or not, you eventually make the decision to divide your life in half - before and after - with loss being that tight bubble in the middle. You can move around in spite of it; you can laugh and smile and carry on with your life, but all it takes is one slow range of motion, a doubling over, to be fully aware of the empty space at your center.

Some women are meant to change the world while others are meant to hold it together.

If you want something to be true badly enough, you can rewrite it that way, in your head. You can even start to believe it.

But then again, maybe bad things happen because it’s the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.

I have a sister, so I know-that relationship, it's all about fairness: you want your sibling to have exactly what you have-the same amount of toys, the same number of meatballs on your spaghetti, the same share of love. But being a mother is completely different. You want your child to have more than you ever did. You want to build a fire underneath her and watch her soar. It's bigger than words.

It never failed to amaze me how the most ordinary day could be catapulted into the extraordinary in the blink of an eye.

It feels like a punch. Tears fill my eyes, and I wonder how I could be upset over losing something I never had.