Tibby's Wish Would Be To Hold On

She Was Supposed To Be Putting Her Life Together Right Now, And All She Could Seem To Do Was Throw Grenades At It.

She'd Cried Over A Broken Heart Before. She Knew What That Felt Like, And It Didn't Feel Like This. Her Heart Felt Not So Much Broken As Just ... Empty. It Felt Like She Was An Outline Empty In The Middle. The Outline Cried Senselessly For The Absent Middle. The Past Cried For The Present That Was Nothing.

They Needed To Grieve Alone Was What Tibby's Dad Said. Lena Wondered If Really There Was Any Choice In That. Everyone Grieved Alone.

She Thought She Would Know When It Happened. But Now, As She Looked Around, She Wondered If It Was Really Like That At All. Maybe It Happened In A Million Different Ways, When You Were Thinking Of It And You Weren't. Maybe There Was No Gap, No Jump, No Chasm. You Didn't Forget Yourself All At Once. Maybe You Just Looked Around One Time Or Another And You Thought, Hey. And There You Were.

His Distress And Pleasure Mixed And Married, Giving Birth To Several Anxious Children.