“If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease. We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help.”
“Gone are the days when girls used to cook like their mothers and boys used to dress like their fathers. Now girls drink like their fathers and boys dress like their mothers.”
“Sam and Caine were left standing side by side, bruised and battered, to stare over Penny s sickening corpse, at the face of their mother.”
“Your mother holds you skin on skin and when you enter this world, feeds you with her own body; skin on skin. Your father runs his fingers over your tear stained cheek, presses his lips to your forehead; skin on skin. You make love, skin on skin with a man you love, a beautiful man. And then, if you’re lucky your own baby will enter this world and you’ll hold her skin on skin, feed her with your body skin on skin. It’s a magical thing.”
“And you, Mom. I loved you. You ve asked if i felt and understood that you loved me. of course I did. And you know this. I loved your love because it kept me safe and happy and wanted, and it existed beyond words and hugs and eyes.”
“When you create a soul, plant the seeds of love with your thoughts, words, and actions . The soul flourishes among the flow-ers of love.”
“Mother was, June thought, a beautiful little ornament that was damaged. Her broken edges cut her daughters in ways both emotional and physical, and only sharpened with age.”
“Motherhood is when eating chicken soup; the kids get the chicken and you get the soup and you would still feel happily stuffed.”
“I want to go back to the tell-me-again times when I slept in her bed and we were everything together. When I was everything to her. Everything she needed.”
“Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?”
“Every woman is a gift when she becomes a daughter, Every woman is beautiful when she becomes a lover, Every woman is special when she becomes a wife, Every woman is a god when she becomes a Mother”
“We smile but I want more. I want her to hug me.”
“Pudge/Colonel: I am sorry that I have not talked to you before. I am not staying for graduation. I leave for Japan tomorrow morning. For a long time, I was mad at you. The way you cut me out of everything hurt me, and so I kept what I knew to myself. But then even after I wasn t mad anymore, I still didn t say anything, and I don t even really know why. Pudge had that kiss, I guess. And I had this secret. You ve mostly figured this out, but the truth is that I saw her that night, I d stayed up late with Lara and some people, and then I was falling asleep and I heard her crying outside my back window. It was like 3:15 that morning, maybe, amd I walked out there and saw her walking through the soccer field. I tried to talk to her, but she was in a hurry. She told me that her mother was dead eight years that day, and that she always put flowers on her mother s grave on the anniversary but she forgot that year. She was out there looking for flowers, but it was too early-too wintry. That s how I knew about January 10. I still have no idea whether it was suicide. She was so sad, and I didn t know what to say or do. I think she counted on me to be the one person who would always say and do the right things to help her, but I couldn t. I just thought she was looking for flowers. I didn t know she was going to go. She was drunk just trashed drunk, and I really didn t think she would drive or anything. I thought she would just cry herself to sleep and then drive to visit her mom the next day or something. She walked away, and then I heard a car start. I don t know what I was thinking. So I let her go too. And I m sorry. I know you loved her. It was hard not to. Takumi”
“You can t know how much a mother loves.”
“I ll teach you, Tiger Lily offered with a shrug of her shoulders. Did your mother teach you? he asked. I don t have a mother, she said. Like you. For some reason, Peter was glad to hear it.”
“But not you, O girl, nor yet his mother, stretched his eyebrows so fierce with expectation. Not for your mouth, you who hold him now, did his lips ripen into these fervent contours. Do you really think your quiet footsteps could have so convulsed him, you who move like dawn wind? True, you startled his heart; but older terrors rushed into him with that first jolt to his emotions. Call him . . . you ll never quite retrieve him from those dark consorts. Yes, he wants to, he escapes; relieved, he makes a home in your familiar heart, takes root there and begins himself anew. But did he ever begin himself?”
“I thought of my mother as Queen Christina, cool and sad, eyes trained on some distant horizon. That was where she belonged, in furs and palaces of rare treasures, fireplaces large enough to roast a reindeer, ships of Swedish maple.”