You couldn't give up you for them. But what if you wanted them more than you wanted a singular powerful you?

One thing I can tell you for sure is this: we only regret what we don't do in life.

Before this trip and all that she'd learned about the three of them, she would have gotten angry or changed the subject. Anything to obscure the pain she felt. Now she knew better. You carried your pain with you in life. There was no outrunning it.

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.

To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost.

It was true; always had been. Friendships were like marriages in that way. Routines and patterns were poured early and hardened like cement.

From the first time we met, we knew everything that mattered about each other, didn't we? We just knew. I guess that's what best friends are: parts of each other.