These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced."

RIP Our Hero. Died for Change.

You know what I'm going to have on my gravestone? "She did it the hard way."

Most of me was glad when my mother died. She was a handful, but not in a cute, festive way. More in a life-threatening way, that had caused me a long time ago to give up all hope of ever feeling good about having had her as a mother.

I don't have very sophisticated taste in music. I listen to a lot of folk music. I like reggae.

My mother's eyes were large and brown, like my son's, but unlike Sam's, they were always frantic, like a hummingbird who can't quite find the flower but keeps jabbing around.