The only real thing in this icy blue-and-black world is my daughter’s hand in mine.
Sometimes we have to forgive the people we love, even if we’re mad as hell. That’s just how it is.
You hang on,” her mother said. “Until your hands are bleeding, and still you do not let go.
Let him think she was as safe as one could be. A coward.
It was ridiculous. She knew crying wouldn’t help, because she cried in her sleep. Night after night she woke with tears on her cheeks, and none of it helped one bit. In fact, the opposite was true. The expression of grief didn’t help. Only its suppression would get her through these hard times.
I’m here, Mom,” Julien says quietly, taking my suitcase, lifting it easily over the obstruction. The sound of his voice reminds me that I am a mother and mothers don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.
Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.
Examination was the only solace. Instead of looking away from heartache, you needed to crawl inside of it, wear it like a warm coat on a cold day. There was peace in loss, beauty in death, freedom in regret.
If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride.
Now, she listens and agrees, and then goes on, talking about the gift of mistakes and the miracle of family. She hopes that people will learn from her bad choices. And she wraps that spell around them, the one only she can spin, and by the end of the show, her listeners are reaching for tissues and thinking about how to find their way back to their own families. The smart ones are reaching for the telephone.
When I care about someone, I hang on with a desperation that borders on mental illness.
Grief is a sneaky thing, always coming and going like some guest you didn’t invite and can’t turn away. She wants this grief, although she’d never admit it. lately, it’s the only thing that feels real.
From the picnic basket, she withdrew a crusty baguette, a wedge of rich, double-cream cheese, two apples, some slices of paper-thin Bayonne ham, and a bottle of Bollinger ’36.
Alaska brings out the best and the worst in a man. Maybe if you’d stayed Outside you never would have become who you are now. I know about ‘Nam, and it breaks my heart what you boys went through. But you can’t handle the dark, can you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Most folks can’t. Accept it and do what’s best for your family.
Hope. A shiny thing, a lure for the unwary. She knew how seductive it could be, and how dangerous.
Of course. Men always think war is about them.
Once you’d learned how bad life could go, and how quickly, you tried to protect those who remained.
I went in search of my mother’s life, and found my own.
Parenting issues were always a popular topic – especially mother–daughter problems.
Dad wanted a new beginning. Needed it. And Mama needed him to be happy.