“You're so beautiful," said Alice. "I'm afraid of looking at you and not knowing who
you are."
"I think that even if you don't know who I am someday, you'll still know that I love you."
"What if I see you, and I don't know that you're my daughter, and I don't know that you love me?"
"Then, I'll tell you that I do, and you'll believe me.”
She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.
Be creative, be useful, be practical, be generous and finish big.
The mother in her believed that the love she had for her daughter was safe from the mayhem of her mind, because it lived in her heart.
Everything she did and love, everything she was, required language.