Lily King

I love these geese. They make my chest tight and full and help me believe that things will be all right again, that I will pass through this time as I have passed through other times, that the vast and threatening blank ahead of me is a mere specter, that life is lighter and more playful than I’m giving it credit for. But right on the heels of that feeling, that suspicion that all is not yet lost, comes the urge to tell my mother, tell her that I am okay today, that I have felt something close to happiness, that I might still be capable of feeling happy. She will want to know that. But I can't tell her. That's the wall I always slam into on a good morning like this. My mother will be worrying about me, and I can't tell her that I'm okay.

— Lily King

When you die, she thought now, you can no longer give love. You can't give love anymore. She wouldn't be able to love her children. It struck her suddenly as the very worst thing about death, worse than not being able to breathe or laugh or kiss. A kind of existential suffocation, to not be able to give her children her love anymore.

— Lily King

The air between us crackles, as it does when you speak of your beloved dead. But it’s hard to know what to say next.

— Lily King

It's not here anymore," he said.

— Lily King