At one point, she'd wanted to hurl the whole breakfast at the wall. And then she'd remember why it was that men had temper tantrums and women didn't: cleanup.

They would always be a family, but if she'd learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn't a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn't control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.

Stacey: "I'm surprised you haven't thrown me out." Comfort: "At your current weight, I'd need some sort of catapult.

Nina knew the power of black and white images. Sometimes a thing was its truest self when the colors were stripped away.

As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.

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.

In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.