There is a loveliness to life that does not fade. Even in the terrors of the night, there is a tendency toward grace that does not fail us.

It is the tenderness that breaks our hearts. The loveliness that leaves us stranded on the shore, watching the boats sail away. It is the sweetness that makes us want to reach out and touch the soft skin of another person. And it is the grace that comes to us, undeserving though we may be.

We want to do something with the time we have, something that will give that time a certain meaning, a certain weight.

When life doesn't meet your expectations, it was important to take it with grace.

A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?

I would give anything, anything, to be the man to whom this has not happened. I can not accommodate myself to it. In a lifetime of trying, I can not accommodate myself to it.

And now I will have to be that person forever.