My mother's life was way too heavy for me.

When compassion wakes up in us, we find ourselves more willing to become vulnerable, to take the risk of entering the pain of others.

I know you've run away - everybody gets the urge to do that some time - but sooner or later you'll want to go home.

There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.

I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone's joy seemed to double it?

In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.

I wondered what it was like to be inside her, just a curl of flesh swimming in the darkness, the quiet things that had passed between us.