My brother believed in all sorts of mythical creatures: pixies, dragons, werewolves, honest men.

I closed my eyes and curled my fists around the things I knew for sure: That a scallop has thirty-five eyes, all blue. That a tuna will suffocate if it ever stops swimming. That I was loved. That this time, it was not me who broke

What she couldn't put into word was what had happened in between to change her from one person into the other

I think this is every mother's worst nightmare - something dreadful happening to her child.

There are legions of us, I realized. The mothers who have broken babies, and spend the rest of our lives wondering if we should have spared them. And the mothers who have let their broken babies go, who look at our children and see instead the faces of the ones they never met.

When you love someone, you don't see parts of him you don't like.

Write a living will. And become an organ donor!