As If In The Other Side Of

The Shadow Of Years Was Not As Big On His Small Body. He Knew I Was Away . But When People Left They Always Came Back.

Hold Still," My Father Would Say, While I Held The Ship In The Bottle And He Burned Away The Strings He'd Raised The Mast With And Set The Clipper Ship Free On Its Blue Putty Sea. And I Would Wait For Him, Recognizing The Tension Of That Moment When The World In The Bottle Depended, Solely, On Me.

Sometimes Holly Seemed Like She Wasn't Paying Attention, And Other Times She Was Gone When I Went Looking For Her. That Was When She Went To A Part Of Heaven We Didn't Share. I Missed Her Then, But It Was And Odd Sort Of Missing Because By Then I Knew The Meaning Of Forever. I Could Not Have What I Wanted Most: Mr. Harvey Dead And Me Living. Heaven Wasn't Perfect. But I Came To Believe That If I Watched Closely, And Desired, I Might Change The Lives Of Those I Loved On Earth.

One Thing About Failing Repeatedly: If You're Still Doing It After You've Failed That Much, You Really Mean It.

But She Was Waiting Patiently. She No Longer Believed In Talk. It Never Rescued Anything. At Seventy She Had Come To Believe In Time Alone. ~pg 254