If I don't cry while writing a key emotional scene, my gut feeling is it's failed.

There is a hunger in you. A fearlessness. You just buried it, like most people do.

You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.

And then, just like that, my heart broke. My face crumpled, my composure went and I held him tightly and I stopped caring that he could feel the shudder of my sobbing body because grief swamped me. It overwhelmed me and tore at my heart and my stomach and my head and it pulled me under, and I couldn’t bear it. I honestly thought I couldn’t bear it.

Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you still had your mother or father at your back, you'd be okay.

She does not want to feel even the faintest temptation to call his mobile number, as she had done obsessively for the first year after his death so she could hear his voice on the answering service. Most days now his loss is a part of her, an awkward weight she carries around, invisible to everyone else, subtly altering the way she moves through the day. But today, the Anniversary of the day he died, is a day when all bets are off.

I will never, ever regret the things I've done. Because most days, all you have are places in your memory that you can go to.