You have to separate yourself from your parents. You do. In order to find yourself.

America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us.

My father's body lies in a stone tomb high on a hill. People walk by, pause, think their own thoughts about him and move on, back to their own lives. I can never move on. He is everywhere.

People love the way they're capable of loving-but that's not always how you want them to love or how you think they should love.

When I was a child, our summer days were spent swimming; chlorine in my hair was like perfume to me.

Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective.

The memories stayed with him for so long, and stayed vivid. And it didn't matter to me that he'd already repeated that before. I could hear it forever.