“Mama recently mailed me this letter, which I sent her more than twenty-three years ago. As I read it now, I don’t recognize that young boy. What happened to all that love and longing I felt for the family and friends I’d left? Separation not only divides families; separation buries emotion, buries it so far down you can’t touch it. I don’t think I would ever love Mama again in the childlike, carefree, innocent way I loved her while writing that letter. I don’t know where that young boy went.”
