The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.

Suddenly it was fall, the season of death, the anniversary of things-going-to-hell.

Loss is so paradoxical: It is at once enormous and tiny.

The truth is, I need to experience my mother's presence in the world around me and not just in my head.

This is part of the complexity of grief: A piece of you recognizes it is an extreme state, an altered state, yet a large part of you is entirely subject to its demands.

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

While I did a lot of research, I ended up feeling that the best way to write about grief was to describe it from the inside out - the show the strange intensities that come along with it, the peculiar thoughts, the longing for that past - all the strange moments of thinking you glimpse the dead person on the street, or in your dreams.