With love like that, you can't get pick about how it finds you or the details. All that matters is that it's there. Better late than never.

Grieving doesn't make you imperfect. It makes you human.

It was kind of soothing, these sounds of lives being lived all around me, for better or for worse. And there I was, in the middle of them all, newly reborn and still waiting for mine to begin.

Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.

During the long stretches of quiet two-lane highway, with the sun setting in the distance, it was somehow easier to say things aloud, and regardless of what was said, we just kept moving toward that horizon.

Wake up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing had said. But what he didn't under­stand was that this dreamland was preferable, walking through this life half-sleeping, everything at arm's length or farther away.

I don't think anyone would think that an ellipsis represents doubt or anything. I think it's more, you know, hinting at the future. What lies ahead.