No mother. Two small words, and yet within them lay a bottomless well of pain and loss, a ceaseless mourning for touches that were never received and words of wisdom that were never spoken. No single word was big enough to adequately describe the loss of your mother.

Whenever I write about motherhood - and I write about it a lot - I am drawing on my experiences as a mother and also my experiences as a daughter.

I prefer to scare myself in the ordinary ways, Daddy. Like letting my children cross the country for college. Why bungee jump when you can put a kindergartener on a school bus? Now, that's real terror.

It was the Magic Hour, the moment in time when every leaf and blade of grass seemed to separate, when sunlight, burnished by the rain and softened by the coming night, gave the world an impossibly beautiful glow.

It's not a date. I bought my own drink and I didn't shave my legs.

You look great," he said. It made her smile, even if it was a lie. "I'm as big as a house." He laughed. "I like houses. In fact, I'm thinking about architecture as a career.

It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.