My mother died on Friday, at 7:25 a.m. I have been avoiding writing about it, because writing about it makes it that much more real.

            I was able to write about her dying, because I could find some possibility to attach to, even while acknowledging the absurdity of my hopefulness.

            In my writing I tend to use (overuse, perhaps) commas, semi-colons, and ellipses; I resist the endpoint of periods. It’s in that hopeful spirit that I offer a metaphor that woke me this morning at four a.m., and still feels true: my mother is not a star, but a comet.