We don’t reach the mountaintop from the mountaintop. We start at the bottom and climb up. Blood is involved. - Cheryl Strayed

I chose Van Gogh.

I was twenty-two, the same age she was when she'd been pregnant with me. She was going to leave my life at the same moment that I came into hers, I thought. For some reason that sentence came fully formed into my head just then, temporarily blotting out the Fuck them prayer. I almost howled in agony. I almost choked to death on what I knew before I knew. I was going to live the rest of my life without my mother.

My mother's last word to me clanks inside me like an iron bell that someone beats at dinnertime: love, love, love, love, love.