Then, putting his palm on top of my head, like a warm hat, he whispered, “Pay attention. Be a person for whom love is not lost.

Of course you can go on. It’s what we do. We go on. Learn how to live with the suffering we’re dealt.

How hard it is to hate a person you’ve once loved.

The first World War had finally come to a close and it all seemed like springtime. I’ve learned since that it is in those moments, when one is lulled into hopefulness, that the sword drops onto one’s head.

I’ve seen it before, what mothers and daughters can do to one another during those terrible adolescent years. Grief must be at the bottom of it, for what is sadder for a parent than seeing her daughter shedding girlhood drop by precious drop? And what is more terrifying for a child than to doubt her mother, to begin to see her as a human with faults instead of as a goddess?

The first World War had finally come to a close and it all seemed like springtime. I've learned since that it is in those moments, when one is lulled into hopefulness, that the sword drops onto one's head.

I would take a free and hopeful breath. It was settled. Fear would no longer be the weakness that undid me. I was seventeen and unsophisticated, and thought I could dig about in my soul for the mettle I needed, and that it would be enough.

Of course you can go on. It's what we do. We go on. Learn how to live with the suffering we're dealt.

I've seen it before, what mothers and daughters can do to one another during those terrible adolescent years. Grief must be at the bottom of it, for what is sadder for a parent than seeing her daughter shedding girlhood drop by precious drop? And what is more terrifying for a child than to doubt her mother, to begin to see her as a human with faults instead of as a goddess?

Perhaps she is right, that there is no reason to suffering, no fair dealing when it comes to meting out bliss and pain. There are just choices, and the echoes of those choices.