I wanted him to be a toy man that I could bring upstairs with me, then store on a high shelf in the closet. But he was alive and complicated. He came with his own parts that had their own demands.

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.

Good weather will do this to people, bond them in their gratefulness.

o’clock

I don't know. It depends on the day. Depends on the hour of the day...I don't really know if I really want to do that. I think I do and then I think I don't. It makes me really nervous to think about really doing it.

I would try to find joy despite the necessary work of grieving, and I knew full well that work was exactly the right word to describe it. It was John’s life that was over, not mine.