Alice: I miss myself. John: I miss you too, Ali, so much.

Everything she did and love, everything she was, required language.

I decide I'm not dead because I can hear the sound of the rain hitting the roof of the car. I'm alive because I'm listening to the rain, and the rain becomes the hand of God strumming his fingers on the roof, deciding what to do.

And you, Mom. I loved you. You've asked if i felt and understood that you loved me. of course I did. And you know this. I loved your love because it kept me safe and happy and wanted, and it existed beyond words and hugs and eyes.

Don't aim for perfect. Aim for complete. Perfection is an unattainable illusion.

But I am not what I say or what I do or what I remember. I am fundamentally more than that.

In the ladies' room, Alice studied her image in the mirror. The reflected older woman's face didn't quite match the picture that she had of herself in her mind's eye." p 35