"...The things one does, one should do out of love." (chapter 17 p118) - Edwidge Danticat

How do you even choose what to mend when so much has already been destroyed? How could she think, she asked herself, that she could revive or save anything? (p152)

'If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.' (p165)

On this anniversary, while remembering the dead and celebrating those still living, I also want to recognize more than ever the marginalized members of Haitian society—people like my grandparents and their grandparents, poor, urban and rural, self-reliant and proud men and women who are the backbone of Haiti. Without their full inclusion and participation in the reconstruction of their country, Haiti will never fully succeed.