Rachel’s Reviews > Flesh & Blood: Reflections on Infertility, Family, and Creating a Bountiful Life: A Memoir > Status Update

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

This is where my childlessness hurts… when I think of what she passed to me that I have nowhere to put.

But then I think that it is vanity to need to leave a mark on things.

…back when I was a kid it never occurred to me… that I’d ever be anything but promise and forward momentum.

…I’m sitting here…as though I have not been a good steward for my body, as though I can’t protect this innocent almost-creature from the onslaught.

I want more time with the earth.

I’ve seen friends tell their dying mothers:, “No, no, you’ll be fine, don’t talk like that.” That seems a cruel thing to say to someone who wants to tell you that they’re afraid.

[Mourning is] recursive, and I’m old enough now to suspect that no one ever really gets over anything.