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No story sits by itself. Our lives connect like threads on a loom, interwoven in ways we never realize.
The tale of your life is written second by second, as shifting as the flip of a pencil to an eraser.
“We forget that ‘our’ time is linked to others’ times. We come from one. We return to one. That’s how a connected universe makes sense.”
When we build, we build on the shoulders of those who came before us. And when we fall apart, those who came before us help put us back together.”
“Have you ever considered how many living things there are on earth?” Cleo asked. “People. Animals. Birds. Fish. Trees. It makes you wonder how anyone could feel lonely. Yet humans do. It’s a shame.”
“We fear loneliness, Annie, but loneliness itself does not exist. It has no form. It is merely a shadow that falls over us. And just as shadows die when light changes, that sad feeling can depart once we see the truth.” “What’s the truth?” Annie asked. “That the end of loneliness is when someone needs you.” The old woman smiled. “And the world is so full of need.”
“No act done for someone else is ever wasted.”
Children begin by needing their parents. Over time, they reject them. Eventually, they become them.
She often thought about a different path, if she hadn’t worked at that bakery, hadn’t met Jerry, hadn’t gotten in his truck that night, hadn’t
been in such an impetuous rush to get married. But then she’d scold herself for imagining a world without her daughter in it, and she would lift Annie and feel her small bulk lying against her and Annie’s buttery cheeks and the way she slid her arms around Lorraine’s neck, and it erased any thought of another life. This is the disarming power of children: their need makes you forget your own.
“I realized I was doing the same foolish things I had done with him. Why did I think anything would turn out differently?” She looked directly at Annie. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was so desperate to find someone new to love me, I forgot I already had the best person. You.”
“That was the lowest moment of my life,” her mother said. “When my daughter most needed me, I was with a man I didn’t even care about.
“Secrets. We think by keeping them, we’re controlling things, but all the while, they’re controlling us.”
“Because we embrace our scars more than our healing,” Lorraine said. “We can recall the exact day we got hurt, but who remembers the day the wound was gone?
“That’s how salvation works. The wrongs we do open doors to do right.”
You only have peace when you make it with yourself.
“There’s no such thing as a nobody. And there are no mistakes.”
Loss is as old as life itself. But for all our evolution, we are yet to accept it.
