That, of course, was another way of asking whether I was feeling guilty about neglecting her in death as I sometimes worried I’d done in life.
-- Narrator (Independence)

Importance: When Russo began having recurring dreams about his mother after her death but before the family had a service to scatter her ashes he wondered if the dreams were his way of telling himself she was neglected. He realized also that the dreams were a product of his own guilt.

From the time I was a boy, my mother valued few things more than her perceived independence.
-- Narrator (Independence)

Importance: Even though his mother was very protective of independence, Russo realized that she was not as independent as she believed she was.

In the GE photograph my mother looks both old-fashioned and modern, both of her time and oddly outside of it, a strange mix of stubborn confidence and acute anxiety.
-- Narrator (Independent)

Importance: Russo discovered this picture of...