“But there is room now in my heart for more memories, carved by a letting go that I could find only by coming home to a place I'd never been.”

“Strong winds buffet the sea oats and tall dune grasses, tossing sand and seabirds where it will, winding my sister's golden hair into sunlit spirals of silk until it becomes the only good memory I have of her -- the only memory I allowed myself to keep.”

“I looked around the garden, the sun feeling warm on my back. "So why are you here? I would think you'd want to be as far away from a hurricane as possible."She looked at me as if I'd just suggested streaking down the beach. It took her a moment to answer. "Because this is home." She wanted to see if the words registered with me, but I just looked back at her, not understanding at all.After a deep breath, she looked up at a tall oak tree beyond the garden, its leaves still green against the early October sky, the limbs now thick with foliage. "Because the water recedes, and the sun comes out, and the trees grow back. Because" -she spread her hands, indicated the garden and the trees and, I imagined, the entire peninsula of Biloxi- "because we've learned that great tragedy gives us opportunities for great kindness. It's like a needed reminder that the human spirit is alive and well despite all evidence to the contrary." She lowered her hands to her sides. "I figured I wasn't dead, so I must not be done”

“Death and loss, they plague you. So do memories. Like the Mississippi's incessant slap against the levees, they creep up with deceptive sweetness before grabbing your heart and pulling it under.”

“I wish I could change things for you, make it so this all doesn't have to hurt so much. But that's the point, isn't it? That one day we'll find that the pain we suffered was worth it.”

“I reached for Helen's hand, and felt her squeeze back, accepting that I would understand more than most the missing part of the human heart rendered by the absence of a mother and father.”

“Life isn't perfect. It's not supposed to be. We all make mistakes. You bash your head against the wall and you get hurt, but you walk away and make the best of it. And that's what makes it life, Brenna, not perfection. You'll never find happiness if you only expect to find a perfect life. Happiness is something we reach for while we try to learn from our disappointments.”