Before We Were Strangers

by Renee Carlino

From the time you’re born, you have no control; you can’t choose your parents, and, unless you’re suicidal, you can’t choose your death. The only thing you can do is choose the person you love, be kind to others, and make your brutally short stint on earth as pleasant as possible.

“ ‘Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.’ ”

The present is our own. The right-this-second, the here-and-now, this moment before the next, is ours for the taking. It’s the only free gift the universe has to offer. The past doesn’t belong to us anymore, and the future is just a fantasy, never guaranteed. But the present is ours to own. The only way we can realize that fantasy is if we embrace the now.

time is the currency of life. And I had lost so much of it.

She was falling in love with him, the way daughters do with their dads.