Grief does not change you. It reveals you. And herein lies the gift that cannot die. It changes the course of your life forever. If you allow yourself the chance to feel it for as long as you need to - even if it is for the rest of your life - you will be guided by it. You will become someone it would have been impossible for you to be, and in this way your loved one lives on, in you

The preciousness of the moment, which should make it easier to talk, makes it harder.

That doesn't sound like my Margo", she said, and I thought of my Margo, and all of us looking at her reflection in different funhouse mirrors.

I went on spouting bullshit Encouragements as Gus's parents, arm in arm, hugged each other and nodded at every word. Funerals, I had decided, are for the living.

Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy?

The world went on, as it does, without my full participation, and I only woke up from the reverie when someone said my name.

In the ensuing silence, I have time to contemplate the word cute— how dismissive it is, how it’s the equivalent of calling someone little, how it makes a person into a baby, how the word is a neon sign burning through the dark reading, “Feel Bad About Yourself.