Gabriel's voice can reach me anywhere. Even in a hurricane.

In another time, in another place, I wonder who they might have been.

I never wanted to live forever," she says. "I just wanted enough time.

‎I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.

It isn’t a perfect place. There are no perfect places. But nobody cares about perfection when there are sand castles to build and kites to chase, children that are being born, old hearts that are giving in.

The thing about hope is that it doesn't go away even when it serves no purpose.

We figure out what death means when we're born, practically, and we live our whole lives in some kind of weird denial about it.