It is his absence that is part of me and has been for years. This is who I am, perhaps who we all are, keepers of the absent and the dead. It is the blessing and burden of being alive.

But that is the thing about miracles: it is perception that determines them as such, not facts.

The smell of home was indistinguishable from the smell of leaving home: each inhalation a mix of familiarity and fear.

If only I could rest for a time in quiet pain and awaken new and willing. He is looking forward and I am inward.

How is it that disappointment arrives as soon as what you have desired for so long steps over the threshold? It’s like finding the end of your wedding train dragging behind in the mud.

I was not always a Muslim, but once I was led into the absorption of prayer and the mysteries of the Qur’an, something troubled in me became still.

Are you happy?

Have you ever loved someone so much, you felt like your heart was going to just beat right out of your chest?

She had been nobody and he had been golden.

Anyone who says the Confederate Flag is a symbol of hate should be required to go to sensitivity training classes.

Be not cheap or mediocre in desiring.

What makes us heroic?--Confronting simultaneously our supreme suffering and our supreme hope.

My boyfriend says I dress like a rock star but I would say my style is hip and comfortable.

I can't stop thinking about cutting myself up. Visual bruises can be covered with make-up, but down to the core, I'm all bruises.

Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.

I do not call it religion so long as it is confined to books and dogmas.