Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich.

There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good.

My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules.

He was like rain, a subtle nudge to the soul. He arrived quietly, often without warning. At times he'd trickle slowly through her mind, a gentle passing, but before she could run for cover she'd find herself drowning in his memory, flooded with heartache all over again.

Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me.

My memories are inside me - they're not things or a place - I can take them anywhere.