I asked how she would provide for the baby she was carrying, she cried out, “Ou met pran li tou,” you can have it as well. She was not being heartless. I believe that she loved her children – so much so that she wanted a safer life for them, even if it meant she could no longer see them everyday. It takes a special strength to take care of a child, Chika, and a whole different strength to admit you cannot.
As we look back on things, what haunts us the most is not the struggle. Not the disease. The fact that the years pass and we say, “Chika would have been eight” or “Chika would have been nine,” or, one day, “Chika would be in college now, drinking coffee.” It’s not the time she spent battling we lament. It’s the growing up she missed. The time she didn’t get. The future she never saw. That still seems so unfair.
You cannot talk when you first arrive.” He smiled. “It helps you listen.
If you find one true friend in life, you’re richer than most.
Be satisfied.” That’s it? “Be grateful.” That’s it? “For what you have. For the love you receive. And for what God has given you.
We burn for water, we growl for food. But what we yearn for most is comfort. A soft embrace. Someone to whisper “It’s all right. It’s all right.
You want some?” he asked. “No, thank you, Inspector.” “Don’t drink?” “Not anymore.” “How come?” “I drank to forget things.” “And?” “I kept remembering them.
If you were really God,” I seethed, “you would have stopped him.” He looked to the sea and shook his head. “God starts things,” he said. “Man stops them.
It’s the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It’s just what our culture would have you believe. Don’t believe it.
A few words from heaven had rendered all the words on earth inconsequential.
Alice.” I hesitated. “What do I do now?” “Forgive yourself,” she said. “Then use this grace to spread my spirit.” “How do I do that?” “Survive this voyage. And once you do, find another soul in despair. And help them.
We all search for something to save us. He thinks it is him.
But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
This was the story he told himself, and the stories we tell ourselves long enough become our truths.
Mitch, I know it hurts when you can’t be with someone you love. But you need to be at peace with his desires.
God starts things,” he said. “Man stops them.
We don’t realize who else we punish while we’re punishing ourselves.
Man suffers for his art.
He wondered why God was always mentioned in the most unusual moments of his life.
Four years? She’d been gone from this world as long as she’d been in it.