Long Gone It's rather boring when someone predicts how sorry you will be after they're gone. You think, even if they're right, they're wrong-- certain truths are too fragile to be told. Take my mother--please. She's very sick yet I'm sick of her when she reminds me: You'll be sorry when I'm gone. When she says it I can't help but ignore her for the rest of her visit. After she's gone, I clean the kitchen, find the stale gingerbread heart she left in a bag to surprise me a few days before. I love you, it says, the icing now hard. I take a bite anyway. It won't be long.