You know, apologies don't count when you qualify them.

The thing about having something hidden in your past is that you spend every minute of the future building a wall that makes the monster harder to see. You convince yourself that the wall is sturdy and thick, and one day, when you wake up and the horrible thing does not immediately jump into your mind, you give yourself the freedom to pretend that it is well and truly gone. Which only makes it that more painful when something like this happens, and you learn that the concrete wall is really as transparent as glass, and twice as fragile.

Maybe the job of a mother is not to shelter but to bear witness as a child hits full force ... and then to cushion the fall when it's over.

You can be an agnostic Jew, a nonpracticing Jew ... but you're still a Jew. Just as you can be an unsure parent, a self-absorbed parent, ... but you are still a parent.

Sure, lots of people believe in God. Lots of people used to believe the world was flat, too.

You can be an agnostic Jew, a nonpracticing Jew, but you're still a Jew. It's like being part of a family. You have to screw up pretty badly to get kicked out.

If you do not want religion, do you have the right to send it away?

Maybe there is more to a person than a body and a mind. Maybe something else figures into the mix - not a soul, exactly, but a spirit that hints you might one day be greater, stronger than you are now. A promise; a potential.