She waited for you in a thousand different ways.

Some stories don't have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.

Jude remembered this pain. Every woman had felt some version of it: the end of first love. It was when you learned, for good and always, that love could be impermanent.

but sometimes one person can hold you up in life, keep you standing, and without that hand to hold, you can find yourself free-falling no matter how strong you used to be, no matter how hard you try to remain steady.

I am such a Pacific Northwest girl.

When you get . . . to the end, you see that love and family are all there is. Nothing else matters.

In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.