The flaw is the thing we love.

The belief that life was hard and often its worst battles were fought in private, that it was possible to walk through fear and come out scorched but still breathing.

It's taken years for me to understand that dying doesn't end the story; it transforms it. Edits, rewrites, the blur, aand epiphany of one-way dialogue. Most of us wander in and out of one another's lives until not death, but distance, does us part-- time and space and heart's weariness are the blander executioners or human connection.

My idea of a productive day, as both a child and an adult, was reading for hours and staring out the window.

It's and old, old story: I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that, too.

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