“I never thought I would see you armed." I was trying for levity. It worked like a lead balloon.”

“That was how I was going to get things back to normal—by working. I never thought I would use the words “working” and “normal” in the same sentence, but I’ll try anything to avoid facing reality.”

“My name is Olivia KingI am five years old.My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist. She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand.“Here Livie, I bought this for you.”She called me Livie.I was so happy. I’d never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloons wrapped around other kids wrists in theparking lot of Wal-Mart, but I never dreamed I would have myvery own.My very own pink balloon.”

“Once you identify what you lack then it's all you see anymore. Wanting something I couldn't have would only lead to unhappiness so I tried to be content with what I had.”

“if my name was on a serious work like this it would never get fair treatment. They would all say I had tried to be funny and failed.”

“I never thought it would end like this. I never thought he would leave me without saying goodbye.”