“Dawn came and matters were worse for it. Because now, emerging from the darkness, I could see, what before I had only felt, the great curtains of rain crashing down on me from towering heights and the waves that threw a path over me and trod me underfoot one after another.”

“Everyone fears catastrophes and disasters and crashes and deaths, and people who attack you in the dark. You made all that worse for me. I felt something might happen which would separate me from you, and I could not deal with life without you.”

“I watched my brother and sister interact with their grandparents and their mother. I could see the shared connection that comes only with years of being a family, years of history with one another, and waves of sadness crashed over me. I would never have that connection with them; those years were truly gone. As Pat had missed watching me grow, I had missed seeing my siblings grow, and I still felt like an outsider. Paradoxically, reunion helped in many ways to fill the void, but in other ways it made the void bigger than ever.”

“I forget the last time I felt brave, I just recall insecurityCause it came down like a tidal wave, and sorrow swept over meThen I was given grace and love, I was blind but now I can seeCause I found a new hope from above, and courage swept over me”

“The waves of pain that had only lapped at me before now reared high up and washed over my head, pulling me under. I did not resurface.”

“If a hand, a situation, a wave were ever to raise me up and carry me to where I could command power and influence, I would destroy the circumstances that had favoured me, and I would hurl myself down into the humble, speechless, insignificant darkness. I can only breathe in the lower regions.”