“Don t let me lose him.”
“My mother s footsteps Were so quiet I barely heard her leave”
“If I am What survives I am here but I am not Much of anything at all To be what’s left And all the rest scooped out”
“I cut all my words out. My heart was too full of them.”
“If you love something, know that it will leave on a day you are far from ready.”
“If I only looked at what I ve lost, I d never be able to see what I have.”
“When did you stop caring? he asked. When did you start noticing? she replied.”
“You must remain. I must depart. Two autumns falling in the heart.”
“But when it comes down to it, we all die alone.”
“My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I m mistaken, after all. Please, don t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.”
“poor cash planning leads to a loss of investment.”
“Your departure crashes like a thunder, and the timbers of the house shake with the force of the space you left behind.”
“Suffocating slowly, do I give up or rise?”
“Sometimes discovery means getting lost on a path where you return to a meaningful version of yourself. It gives you the scent of a world smiling still. It becomes the fresh water of your life itself....”
“Nagisa, I finally found it. I finally found it. Something only I can protect, the precious thing only I can protect. It was right here.”
“I stared at the hospice nurse s clipboard of notes, her purple scrubs, her file filled with Momma s health history, and I listened to the clicking of her pen and never looked her in the eye. She didn t belong in our home. She was just full of false information, cynical with age, and her pessimism about Momma s lifespan was making the house feel claustrophobic, like a coffin. She was closing the lid.”
“I began this process by wondering what it would mean for me to lay Momma to rest. But I did the opposite of laying her to rest—I brought her stories back to life, making her more real to me and less of a stranger. I worked to remember her. I was carrying around her dead body with me before, and now I carry the parts that are alive.”