Life is full of screwups. You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existance.

I would have thought this would make me feel better.. Getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn't. Not at all.

She bought seeds and raided nurseries and mulched and composted and spent full days with her hands full of earth, coaxing life our of the dry, dull grass my father had spent years pushing a mower over.

That was the hard thing about grief, and the grieving. They spoke another language, and the words we knew always fell short of what we wanted them to say.

The point,' Ms. Conyers continued, 'is that no word had one specific definition. Maybe in the dictionary, but not in real life.

Accepting all the good and bad about someone. It's a great thing to aspire to. The hard part is actually doing it.