What Shall We Drink To?"

He Was Afraid That The Secrets She'd Kept Would Always Be Here, Inside Him, An Ugly Malignant Thing Lodged Near Enough To His Heart To Upset Its Rhythm, And Though It Could Be Removed, Cut Out, There Would Always Be Scars; Bits And Pieces Of It Would Remain In His Blood, Making It Wrong Somehow, So That If He Accidentally Sliced His Skin Open, His Blood Would--for One Heartbeat--flow As Black As India Ink Before It Remembered That It Should Be Red.

No Mother. Two Small Words, And Yet Within Them Lay A Bottomless Well Of Pain And Loss, A Ceaseless Mourning For Touches That Were Never Received And Words Of Wisdom That Were Never Spoken. No Single Word Was Big Enough To Adequately Describe The Loss Of Your Mother.

Promises Were A Lot Like Impressions. The Second One Didn't Count For Much.

If I Have Learned Anything In This Long Life Of Mine, It Is This: In Love We Find Out Who We Want To Be; In War We Find Out Who We Are.

I Have Often Wished In The Past Few Years That My Mom Were Here To Help Me As I Raised My Own Teenage Son. As A Girl, With My Own Mom, I Thought I Knew It All; Now I Know Better. Somewhere, I Know My Mom Is Smiling.