James Lipton was asking about her mother’s untimely death. The two of us watched as this beautiful, stoic, adult woman immediately began to tear up. Nearly forty years after the fact, the mere mention of her mother still had this kind of effect. I imagined myself years from that moment, confronted by the same emotions. For the rest of my life there would be a splinter in my being, stinging from the moment my mother died until it was buried with me.
