But there is room now in my heart for more memories, carved by a letting go that I could find only by coming home to a place I'd never been.

The word that came to me now was "defiant." Because a person had to be defiant to be able to stand amid the wreckage of her life and instead of shaking a fist, pick up a hammer.

Mama?" "Yes, Emmy." She traced a rivulet of rain with her finger as it made its journey down the glass. "How do you know when it's been long enough?" Emmy could sense her mother smiling into the phone. "When you relaize that love doesn't have a time span. Only pain does. I think sometimes it's hard to distinguish between the two, so we just hold on to both of them like they're inseparable.

A life without rain is like the sun without shade.

The highway of life was littered with the roadkill of those who didn't know when to change lanes.

Every woman should have a daughter to tell her stories to. Otherwise, the lessons learned are as useless as spare buttons from a discarded shirt. And all that is left is a fading name and the shape of a nose or the color of hair. The men who write the history books will tell you the stories of battles and conquests. But the women will tell you the stories of people's hearts.

Sometimes hope is all we have, and to lose that is to lose all.