The Asylum Confessions: Family Matters (The Asylum Confession Files, #2)

by Jack Steen

I think Death has many faces, many voices, and it all depends on the person you are, and what you've done with your life.

What kind of father would I be if I didn’t protect my daughter’s honor?

After that fire, she let her hair regrow. After that fire, she started to smile again. After that fire, a sparkle reignited in her eyes.

I’ve been painted a monster. I’m not one, whether you believe me or not.

"The only time you ever see a person's true character, who they really are, is right before they die. Anytime you judge a person before seeing their true self, you're robbing yourself of an opportunity.

If I wasn't someone people came to in the hard times, then I was living my life wrong.

It's a dangerous world, and as much as I thought I knew that, I didn't truly understand what it meant until after my brother faked his own death.

What Henry doesn't know, the secret many of us in the Asylum know but are keeping from him, is this: His brother is here too. He has been for years.

“Oh honey, by the time you reach my age, all you’ll have done is say goodbye. Practice doesn’t make perfect. It never gets easy; you just learn to handle your grief better.”

So even if your existence seems sedentary, isolated, and unadventurous, if you do well with the life you've been given, then it's well-lived.

Rarely are you given second chances, real second chances, but when you do, when they present themselves to you…you need to figure out if the strings attached are worth the price.

It's similar to being a reader - that addictiveness you feel to get lost within the pages of a book, within the characters of a story…you still live, through the experiences and words of others.

That’s something no one should ever tell another parent. Never tell someone who grieves that their heart will heal.

If you live with regrets, then you’re not truly living. You’re reacting in order to not live with more regrets. Don’t do that, Jack. Wake up each day determined to be the best person you can be. Go to sleep each night knowing you did the absolute best you could and that it’s too late to change actions you’ve already taken. Determine to be absolute in your decisions, and you’ll never experience a moment of regret. Regret can destroy dreams, did you know that? When all you do is focus on the things that went wrong in your life, you miss out on what could be happening, the good things.

If you’re grieving, you need to let that grief sweep over you, wash over you, as if you were a pebble of sand adrift along the shoreline. Eventually, the strength of the water will pull you in until you are surrounded, and the very grief you thought was drowning you is, instead, supporting you.

Sometimes we never get the chance to properly say goodbye to someone.