I held him close and said nothing, all the while telling him silently that he was loved. Oh, but he was loved.

Sometimes, Clark, you are pretty much the only thing that makes me want to get up in the morning.

If all we are allowed is hours, minutes, I want to be able to etch each of them on to my memory with exquisite clarity so that I can recall them at moments like this, when my very soul feels blackened.

And then, just like that, my heart broke. My face crumpled, my composure went and I held him tightly and I stopped caring that he could feel the shudder of my sobbing body because grief swamped me. It overwhelmed me and tore at my heart and my stomach and my head and it pulled me under, and I couldn’t bear it. I honestly thought I couldn’t bear it.

I realized I was afraid of living without him. How is it you have the right to destroy my life, I wanted to demand of him, but I’m not allowed a say in yours? But I had promised.

I chose to believe that God, a benign God, would understand our sufferings and forgive us our trespasses.

I thought, briefly, that I would never feel as intensely connected to the world, to another human being, as I did at that moment.