The real hell of this," he told her, "is that you're going to get through it.

What do you do when the story changes in midlife? When a tale you have told yourself turns out to be a little untrue, just enough to throw the world off-kilter? It’s like leaving the train at the wrong stop: You are still you, but in a new place, there by accident or grace, and you will need your wits about you to proceed.

Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.

The truth, or success, of any writer's story lies partly in its specificity and its emotional honesty.

memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain.

That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her.

Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.