"I truly do not know...after nearly thirty-one years what use would a child have for a mother, I wonder? Skinned knees would not need kissing, hurt feelings would not need mending," there was nothing that she could do in that capacity, there was no practical way in which she was needed, though the years counting down her child's life? That was certainly something that had her on edge, absent she might have been, but her child dying before her? No parent wanted that, "...I...am tempted, but...to the best of my knowledge he is a success as a person...and that is all that matters. His happiness as well...matters."