“I could hear the chaotic laughter trailing behind me. It turned the ageless trees into a menace. They loomed around me, while hiding him. The branches tore at my skin in an effort to bind me, while weeds sought to shackle my ankles, so that I could go no further. The pain they caused was minor, when I compared it to the searing inferno at my core.”

“Once a man I was leaving told me I could go if I would leave my skin behind. I was so young I didn't even know that I was wonderful..”

“I tried many, many times to run away while my little brother was asleep. But at those moments, I always ended up thinking this--My brother has only me in this world. Vince wants only me and needs only me. However... when he is gone, will there really be anyone else who needs me?When I thought about that, it scared me. It truly scared me. Cowardly, I could do nothing but hold my brother's tiny body while hiding my ugly emotions.”

“He said I could make him happy. Then I understood the cause of my sadness. I didn't want to make anybody happy. I wanted someone to make me happy. I knew that there was laughter and I wanted someone who could laugh with me. ”

“So much of my life had been spent taking and taking and taking. Thinking it was all about me, believing that everything came down to me and how I felt, what I wanted. Even in my grasping attempts to know God, I did exactly that: I grasped. I sought. Sometimes I waited. But I never opened myself, spread my soul wide as an offering so He could come and capture me. I never let Him run strong fingers through my soil, watering it with His grace so my fruit could grow and grow above the weeds that threatened to choke it out.”

“I loved him so much, more than any moment or event could ever render. He was my air, my water, my blood pumping through my veins. I gave him every hidden spoke in my wheel. Every little thing that meant anything to me was nothing compared to him. To see him in so much pain cracked my soul.”