She had become somewhat of a stranger to me in her time away, and just as a familiar place can seem smaller and clearer when you return there after an absence, and any changes quite shocking at first, I found her somehow distilled, as well as in certain ways startlingly altered. Change is also loss, and in that sense a parent can lose a child every day, until you realise that you’d better stop predicting what they’re going to become and concentrate on what is right in front of you.
