She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.

She said, 'Believe it or not, I used to be idealistic.' I asked her what 'idealistic' meant. 'It means you live by what you think is right.' 'You don't do that anymore?' 'There are questions I don't ask anymore.

I made up my mind that nothing,, nothing was going to stop me Not even me.

She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary.

There are only so many times that you can utter ‘It does not hurt’ before it begins to hurt even more than the hurt. You become enlightened of the feeling of feeling hurt, which is worse, I am certain, than the existent hurt.

A few days after we came home from the hospital, I sent a letter to a friend, including a photo of my son and some first impressions of fatherhood. He responded, simply, 'Everything is possible again.' It was the perfect thing to write, because that was exactly how it felt. We could retell our stories and make them better, more representative or aspirational. Or we could choose to tell different stories. The world itself had another chance.

But I still couldn't figure out what it all meant. The more I found out, the less I understood.