Happiness is what you choose to remember. - Jodi Picoult

My mother moves so fast I do not even see it coming. But she slaps my face hard enough to make my head snapbackward. She leaves a print that stains me long after it’s faded. Just so you know: shame is five-fingered.

There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.

Love meant jumping off a cliff and trusting that a certain person would be there to catch you at the bottom.