My favorite excerpt from "A Portrait of Dawn"

"She drew me into a circle of three. Her tears mixed with mine and dripped onto the little yellow dress. It seemed appropriate that my little girl would wear a dress decorated by the tears of both her mothers....The pain I felt was excruciating; worse than the pains of childbirth. I felt like I was giving birth again. I was. I was giving birth to grief and I felt certain I would die from it."