The Berry Pickers

by Amanda Peters

You never know when you might need kindness from people.”

I don’t think anyone remembers when they started to make sense of the world. I can’t remember the first time I empathized with anyone, or the first time I noticed an adult and classified them as normal or odd, friendly or dangerous. I don’t remember the first time I cried at a movie because I felt broken-hearted for someone, or the first time I turned red with embarrassment at someone else’s blunder. But I do remember the day I first understood difference. And I don’t mean the difference between homemade chocolate chip cookies and store-bought. I’m talking about real difference.

There is a code among the dying: let the living speak. They have longer to atone for it.

A place, like a person, takes on a certain quality when you’re going to get to know it intimately.

Hope is such a wonderful thing until it isn’t.