But for a very long time, even after my life had moved on and even soared, even after I had a home of my own, a family of my own, in so many ways the vibrant life Id dreamed of as a child, even then I couldnt speak of my mother without tears. I couldnt even say a simple thing like my mother grew up in Brooklyn without crying. For this reason, I learned not to speak of her at all. The tears felt unacceptable; it made no sense to grieve a mother who was still alive, even a mother as difficult as mine. But I couldnt accept the chasm between the mother I remembered, whod been my greatest companion, champion, and love, and the one I had now. Yet that childhood motherif shed ever existed in the first placehad walked away with the diaries I handed her on the final day of freshman year, and it was, for all intents and purposes, the last I ever saw of her.

Bittersweet by Susan Cain