Grief takes many forms, including the absence of grief
She has given me a way out.
It's our very capacity for self-consciousness that makes us self-destructive!
And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.
It's a hard thing to age a character because you can't really suddenly give someone gray hair.
Basically, my work is play. It never actually feels that way - I'm always aiming to attain that state. But I get to do for a living what I did as a child for fun, and that's pretty cool.