Natalie

“It's come at last", she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“But she needs me more than she needs him and I guess being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.”
― Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint, that we might leave room for the life that is destined to come. To protect what is wild is to protect what is gentle. Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place