She waited for you in a thousand different ways.

Oh, Mia. You haven’t even begun to find out who you really are, and, believe me, other boys are going to fall in love with you. If a guy can’t see how special you are, he isn’t good enough for you.

Thoughts - even fears - were airy things, formless until you made them solid with your voice and once given that weight, they could crush you.

Real friends. The kind that don't purposely hurt your feelings or stop liking you for no reason.

She'd been criticized for holding the reins of parenthood too tightly, of controlling her children too completely, but she didn't know how to let go. From the moment she'd first decided to become a mother, it had been an epic battle.

Some stories don't have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.

You will always miss her. There will be days - even years from now - when the missing will be so sharp it will take your breath away. But there will be good days, too, months and years of them. In one way or another you'll be searching for her all your life.