“As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life.”

“I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence.”

“Some presence had a hold of me in that moment that would change my life from then on. I didn't know what that change would look like or how it would happen. All I know was that it was there.”

“I sort through the letters and pull out what I need for the beginning. They snap easily into place. And even though I thought I would need every letter, I finish the first sentence and realize that it’s all I have left to say.I MISS YOU.”

“Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all.For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt lik I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back. I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop.But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out.”

“I was in the ecstasy of babies then. I was on a long, oxytocin high. Noone told me about this. Noone told me I would feel like a wild animal ready to kill or be killed at a moment’s notice with no hesitation at all right now for my baby. I would sit on the bed at night nursing Lally and I would imagine a lion jumping through the window. I would plan how to kill him. I knew the lion would be immediately dead. I knew that no matter what, my baby would survive.”