I had hoped to feel some sense of her spirit, her presence— but there was nothing there.

Need I remind you of the properties of light? The way that it indiscriminately fills up any space that allows it in; how it does not hold back or intimidate; how it is simultaneously pragmatic and holy?

As everyone picked up their forks, placed napkins on laps, you would slide your wine glass over to your granddaughter and let her stick her finger in, suck the acidic sweetness from the tip.

My diagnosis allowed every doctor I saw to pretend they knew something about me. The more they knew, the less they listened to me...I could never get across that my body was a whole thing.

I have no idea if I completed whatever task I had been summoned for, but I remember the vehemence of his plea: If you know nothing else, you need to know this.

You learned to say “I need a job” in English at the JFK airport to anybody who would listen. That’s when they put a mop in your hands. So you started mopping, and then you stopped smoking, stopped drinking, or at least that’s what you told me you did. Maybe it was when you had Elizabeth, and before you had us, that you stopped having fun.