But mostly I wondered why the head could move so swiftly while the heart dragged its feet. I still loved him. It felt like anything else permanent that has gone missing; a lost tooth, a severed leg. You might know better, but that doesn’t keep your tongue from poling at the hole in your gum, or your phantom limb from aching.

You signed no contract to become a parent, but the responsibilities were written in invisible ink. There was a point when you had to support your child, even if no one else would. It was your job to rebuild the bridge, even if your child was the one who burned it in the first place.

People have to experience things that terrify them. If they don't, how will they ever come to appreciate safety?

The reason I am still sitting at Josef's kitchen table is the same reason traffic slows after a car wreck- you want to see the damage; you can't let yourself pass without that mental snapshot. We are drawn to horror even as we recoil from it.

Love was that way. You could not render it in black or white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of grey.

We could all be lucky. We could all be what we want to be, instead of who someone else told us to be.

What is right, in the end, is not always what it seems to be, and some rules are better broken.