Excerpt

“Reaching into the bag at her side, she pulled out her journal and stared down at it, tracing the leather pattern on the cover. It was almost finished now. She’d written it all down, or as much as she could remember, and it had helped her as much as he’d hoped it would someday help her kids. She opened to the page where she’d left off and began to write.

That’s the funny thing about writing your life story. You start out
trying to remember dates and times and names. You think it’s about facts,
your life, that what you’ll look back on and remember are the successes and
failures, the time line of your youth and middle age, but that isn’t it at
all. Love. Family. Laughter. That’s what I remember when
it’s all said
and done. For so much of my life I thought I didn’t do
enough or want
enough. I guess I can be forgiven my stupidity. I was
young. I want my
children to know how proud I am of them, and how proud I
am of me. We
were
everything we needed – you and Daddy and I. I had
everything I ever
wanted.
Love.
That’s what we remember.

She closed the journal. There was nothing more to say."