Sara: "You are so brave," I tell her, and then I smile. "When I grow up, I want to be just like you." To my surprise, Kate shakes her head hard. Her voice is a feather, a thread. "No Mommy," she says. "You'd be sick.

I could think whatever I wanted to, but realized that any promises I made myself were destined to be broken.

The more you get past pain, the more it goes from coal to diamond.

the letters are mixed up. U and I should be together.

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

I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.

I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway.