The word "miss" is so wistful. As is the word "wistful," for that matter. They both have sighs embedded in them, that "iss" sound. Which also sounds like if.

But who is ever able to apply to her own current love affair a word like "similar"?

And while some healing does happen, it isn't a healing of redemption or epiphany. It's more like the slow absorption of a bruise.

A love story - your own, or anyone else's - is interior, hidden. It can never be accurately reported, only imagined. It is all dreams and invention. It's guesswork.

[On suicide:] It's the only cause of death that can be used as a noun to describe the dead person. If you die of cancer you are not called 'a cancer.' If someone else shoots you, you are not referred to as 'a murder.' But if you shoot yourself, you are labeled as a suicide. Your death becomes your definition.

The word "miss" is so wistful. As is the word "wistful," for that matter. They both have sighs embedded in them, that "iss" sound. Which also sounds like if.

There is also something deeply lovely about uncertainty: the possibility of optimism.