Eventually I came across another passage. This is what it said: I am not commanding you, but I want to treat the sincerity of your love by comparing it to the earnestness of others. The words made me choke up again, and just as I was about to cry, the meaning of it suddenly became clear. God had finally answered me, and I suddenly knew what I had to do.

Yes... it wasn't over, it still isn't over.

She'd always believed that people come in two varieties: those who look out the windshield and those who stare in the rearview mirror. She'd always been the windshield type: gotta focus on the future, not the past, because that's the only part that's still up for grabs. Mom throws me out? Gotta get some food and find a place to live. Husband dies? Gotta keep working, or I'll end up going crazy. Got some guy stalking me? Gotta figure out a way to stop it.

As I write, I am struggling with the ghost of someone I loved and lost. I now understand more fully the difficulties you were going through, and I realize how painful it must have been for you to move on.

I don't know that love changes. People change. Circumstances change.

Love burns across the infinitude.

We're not the same people we were then. We've changed, we've grown.