I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.

Maybe time didn't heal wounds exactly, but it gave you a kind of armor, or a new perspective. A way to remember with a smile instead of a sob.

Books + friendship = book club

Time goes too quickly. This is the advice that my mother should have given me from her hospital bed. Instead of vague, unknowable quips like "Be careful what you wish for," she should have told me time slides away on a hillside of loose shale and takes everything in its path - dreams, opportunities, hopes. And youth. It takes that fastest of all.

She used to tell me that she couldn't feel the sunlight anymore, not even when she was standing in it, not even when it was hot on her cheeks

I might screw up, I might embarrass you, I might yell at you, but I will never, ever stop loving you. You're my first born. The first time I held you... I fell in love so hard it cracked my bones.

Then he left her there, standing alone, surrounded by word ghosts; things she could have said.