Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

Grief doesn't necessarily make you noble. Sometimes it just makes you crazy, or primitive with fear.

Near the end I asked him one night in the hospital corridor what he thought was happening, and he said, "Tell her everything you haven't said," and I smiled with relief. "There's nothing," I said. "I've already told her everything.

Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.

The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course.

The flaw is the thing we love.