Things You Save in a Fire

by Katherine Center

Of course, our parents get an extra dose of importance in our minds. When we’re little, they’re everything—the gods and goddesses that rule our worlds. It takes a lot of growing up, and a lot of disappointment, to accept that they’re just normal, bumbling, mistaken humans, like everybody else.

I tried, with at least partial success, to savor the time we had left. That was the goal, anyway—to enjoy her living presence near me and not fixate so much on the sorrow to come that I forgot to pay

attention. To learn to make the best of things. As fast as I could.

But, in the moment, given all the sadness that already surrounded me, all I could focus on was the leaving. My heart rate sped up. Was it panic? Was it anger? All I can say is, I just wasn’t sure I could take one more person leaving me. Not today.

Yes, the world is full of unspeakable cruelty. But the answer wasn’t to never feel hope, or bliss, or love—but to savor every fleeting, precious second of those feelings when they came. The answer wasn’t to never love anyone. It was to love like crazy whenever you could.