People Grow Up By Living.

But She Was Waiting Patiently. She No Longer Believed In Talk. It Never Rescued Anything. At Seventy She Had Come To Believe In Time Alone. ~pg 254

You Look Invincible,' My Mother Said One Night. I Loved These Times, When We Seemed To Feel The Same Thing. I Turned To Her, Wrapped In My Thin Gown, And Said: I Am.

But I Know I Would Not Go Out. I Had Taken This Time To Fall In Love Instead — In Love With The Sort Of Helplessness I Had Not Felt In Death — The Helplessness Of Being Alive, The Dark Bright Pity Of Being Human — Feeling As You Went, Groping In Corners And Opening Your Arms To Light - All Of It Part Of Navigating The Unknown.

These Things, She Felt, Were Not To Be Passed Around Like Disingenuous Party Favors. She Kept An Honor Code With Her Journals And Her Poems. 'inside, Inside,' She Would Whisper Quietly To Herself When She Felt The Urge To Tell.

Last Night It Had Been My Father Who Had Finally Said It: "she’s Never Coming Home." A Clear And Easy Piece Of Truth That Everyone Who Had Ever Known Me Had Accepted. But He Needed To Say It, And She Needed To Hear Him Say It.