Quote

As a young man you don't notice at all that you were, after all, badly affected. For years afterwards, at least ten years, I kept getting these dreams, in which I had to crawl through ruined houses, along passages I could hardly get through.

It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.

I lost my dad when I was younger, and I know what it's like to lose a beloved parent.

My father was out of my life when I was pretty young - when I was 7 years old, he was gone. I didn't see him for the rest of my childhood.

Obviously, at this age, I've lost people in my life. But with a parent, it's just different. I was very attached to my father and had this naive little-girl notion that he'd always be around. So I'm finding acceptance of my father's death is the hardest thing to accept.

If you lose a parent, no matter at what age, every five or 10 years you have a different way of missing them and a different way of getting on with your life.

It seemed like most of the memories faded before they had time to form. And after a while, my life with my father seemed like a familiar story or a distant dream.

My children have stolen my dreams in a very literal sense. I've lost months in the minutes and hours that Sabine and Zoey have needed me at night, their thin, butterfly-beating hearts pushed against me in the darkness.

I lost both my parents young - but I have felt their presence throughout my life.

When I was 12 and met my real father for the first time, I was terrified I would lose the one I already had.