It is not so much about who my father was, this advice; it is what life is about. What death does to you. When I look down, of course she is not moving, her skin is cold, and I know she did not really speak to me. But she did. And so I do what I must. I stand up, feeling out my new role. I am a motherless daughter now, a sisterless woman. There is no one left of the family I was born into; there is only the family I have made.