Without love of something I don't know if you can have a meaningful life at all.

He'd lived long enough to know that everyone handled grief in different ways, and little by little, they all seemed to accept their new lives.

How had I become middle-aged while the ravages of time ignored her? I didn't know and didn't care, and before I could stop them, the words were already out. "You're beautiful," I murmured.

Staring at the stars was like staring backward in time, since some stars are so far away that their light takes millions of years just to reach us. That we see stars not as they look now, but as they were when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The whole concept just struck me as…amazing somehow.

Early on, he'd learned to enjoy simple things, things that couldn't be bought, and he had a hard time understanding people who felt otherwise.

I'm not naive, I know that bad things happen, but most people do the right thing most of the time. Most people wake up and they try to do what's right for their relationships, whether it's marriage or family. They try to do what's right for their job. They try to make a better world for those around them, and that's what I want to write about.

Yet losing him seemed unbearable. He was the one she loved, the one she would always love, and as he leaned in to kiss her, she gave herself over to him. While he held her close, she ran her hands over his shoulders and back, feeling the strength in his arms. She knew he’d wanted more in their relationship than she’d been willing to offer, but here and now, she suddenly knew she had no other choice. There was only this moment, and it was theirs.