In the stories about life and death, the soul often floats above the goodbye moment, hovering over police cars at highway accidents, or clinging like… - Mitch Albom

By now, the morning sun was just over the horizon and it came at me like a sidearm pitch between the houses of my old neighborhood. I shielded my eyes. This being early October, there were already piles of leaves pushed against the curb — more leaves than I remembered from my autumns here — andless open space in the sky. I think what you notice most when you haven’t been home in a while is how much the trees have grown around your memories.

Mothers support certain illusions about their children, and one of my illusions was that I liked who I was, because she did. When she passed away, so did that idea.

There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between summers was gone.