And after my mother's death I became more open to and empathetic about other people's struggles and losses.

A mother is a story with no beginning. That is what defines her.

When my mother was sick, I found myself needing to put down in my journals all sorts of things - to try to understand them, and, I think, to try to remember them.

One of the ideas I've clung to most of my life is that if I just try hard enough it will work out.

I wasn't prepared for the fact that grief is so unpredictable. It wasn't just sadness, and it wasn't linear. Somehow I'd thought that the first days would be the worst and then it would get steadily better - like getting over the flu. That's not how it was.

There are many kinds of loss embedded in a loss - the loss of the person, and the loss of the self you got to be with that person. And the seeming loss of the past, which now feels forever out of reach.

Be patient with yourself. Don't make the loss harder by thinking you should be a certain way, or have bounced back, etc.