You couldn't have strength without weakness, you couldn't have light without dark, you couldn't have love without loss - Jodi Picoult

People ask all the time how I'm doing, but the truth is, they don't really want to know.

And the very act of living is a tide; at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded

They sat me down and told me all the usual stuff, of course—but they also explained that they chose little embryonic me, specifically, because I could save my sister, Kate. ‘We loved you even more,’ my mother made sure to say, ‘because we knew what exactly we were getting.’