She Was An Expert At The Art

I Was Brought Up In A Community, In A Family That Valued Such Things As Good Manners, And I Still Do.

We Don't Always Have A Choice How We Get To Know One Another. Sometimes, People Fall Into Our Lives Cleanly--as If Out Of The Sky, Or As If There Were A Direct Flight From Heaven To Earth--the Same Sudden Way We Lose People, Who Once Seemed They Would Always Be Part Of Our Lives

I Still Believe In Getting Married In Churches And Baptizing Children. I Go Through Those Motions.

When Someone You Love Dies, And You're Not Expecting It, You Don't Lose Her All At Once; You Lose Her In Pieces Over A Long Time—the Way The Mail Stops Coming, And Her Scent Fades From The Pillows And Even From The Clothes In Her Closet And Drawers. Gradually, You Accumulate The Parts Of Her That Are Gone. Just When The Day Comes—when There's A Particular Missing Part That Overwhelms You With The Feeling That She's Gone, Forever—there Comes Another Day, And Another Specifically Missing Part.

All His Life He Would Hold This Moment As Exemplary Of What Love Was. It Was Not Wanting Anything More, Nor Was It Expecting People To Exceed What They Had Just Accomplished; It Was Simply Feeling So Complete.