This anger I felt wasn’t about the child at all. It’s inside me and it’s poisoning so many of my relationships. It leaves so little room for compassion.” She reached up to wipe a tear from her face. “That’s no way to live. I have to get over it. I may need some help, I don’t know. But I realized something today dredging up all those murky memories. I can’t change the past. I can’t take the hurt back. But I can soften it if I can just learn how to accept it.

She closed her eyes as his full weight stretched over her. They fit together perfectly and as they clung together her woman’s body felt that at last she had found the man’s bones from which she’d been created, and she was overcome with desire to become one flesh.

A mother was only as happy as her most unhappy child.

The tree had become our unspoken symbol of that important Christmas when we had all dug deep and fought for one another – for our survival. For our family. For our happiness. And in the process, discovering the true meaning of Christmas.

Whatever it was inside of me, whatever kernel deep inside that enabled me to believe in fairies, in Peter, in the Neverland itself, this was my source of strength. No one could ever take that away from me. As long as I believed, no matter where I was or with whom, I’d always belong. Because I was at home in my own heart.” Wendy.

My story will change, and so will yours. We’ll just go on changing, making a new set of choices, then living them out. That’s what life is anyway, just a long string of choices.

I can’t change the past. I can’t take the hurt back. But I can soften it if I can just learn how to accept it.

Our children are grown, we’ve enjoyed some success in our lives, and we’re looking for something else now to fulfill ourselves... It’s like being adolescents all over again, only this time we don’t care if everyone likes the way we look or the clothes we wear. Or even if people like us at all. That nasty competition is over. I see this as a time to be who we’ve always seen ourselves as being, deep in our hearts.

See how people smile when they see a butterfly? They can’t help themselves. Butterflies are joy with wings.

Sometimes when we see that we only have a few pages left we slow down, savoring each word, staving off the inevitable.