I have always been a sick child. It was never bad enough to warrant a trip to the hospital,

but it was always something that was hanging over me. I was smaller and less energetic than most kids my age.

While they prefer to run around and play outside,

I chose to stay inside and read.

The slightest bit of activity was enough to exhaust me for days on end.

It wasn't a bad life, but I can certainly see how it made me into the introverted person I am today. I took comfort in books and I experienced the world

through them. It wasn't until I turned 23 that I began to question myself. Everyone around me seemed to be getting married and settling down, but I wasn't.

I had a few work friends, but no one who I really hung out with in my free time.

My family was gone. I lost my father at a very young age to a heart attack brought on by a life of high cholesterol and my mother passed away shortly

after I graduated college from an extremely malignant form of pancreatic adinocartinoma.

My mother clung onto life for a few weeks before a body shut down. I remember my last memory of her in the hospital.

She was so thin that it looked like the slightest breeze would take her from me.

Her eyes were bright and feverish, and the skin was yellowed like the pages of an old book.

The palliative, Demerol, they were giving her to ease her into a final moment's

roved her of any coherent last words.

She just stared at me with a glassy eyes as the end came for her.

I clutched the hand in mine, but it was like she wasn't even there.

I told her her loved her. She didn't respond.

She just closed her eyes and let everything go. I decided that it was time for me to do the same.

I had no close family nearby or any real friends. I was alone in the world. I put in my two weeks notice at the small company

that was gracious enough to hire me, fresh-eyed out of college, and left town shortly after my mother's

funeral. In all honesty, I didn't want to stay there any longer.

...