Sometimes you don't even know what you want until you find out you can't have it.

My mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer shortly before three P.M. on Christmas Day of 2008. I don't know the exact time of her death, because none of us thought to look at a clock for a while after she stopped breathing.

My whole life, I had been taught to read and study, to seek understanding in knowledge of history, of cultures.

I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone.

A mother is the portal by which you enter the world.

Many grievers experience intense yearning or longing after a death - more than they experience, say, denial.

Many Americans don't mourn in public anymore - we don't wear black, we don't beat our chests and wail.