“Honey, we all got to go sometime, reason or no reason. Dyin’s as natural as livin’; man who’s afraid to die is too afraid to live, far as I’ve ever seen. So there’s nothing to do but forget it, that’s all. Seems to me”

“I want to go into the sympathy card business. . . Forget sappy messages about overcoming. I want ones that say NOW YOU’LL BE A LESSER PERSON THAN YOU WERE or WE CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND or I CAN UNDERSTAND BECAUSE SOMEONE I KNOW DIED TOO or maybe something about how grief can make your skin feel sore and bruised and electric because that’s how my skin has felt ever since, except for my hands.”

“Sometimes the only reason for us to be somewhere else is to see things from a different perspective.”

“Sometimes I feel hunted by my grief. It circles me, stalks me. It's always in my periphery. Sometimes I can fake it out. Sometimes I make myself go so still, it can't sense that I'm there anymore and it goes away. I do that right now.”

“I'm not afraid to be alone like you are.”

“...We’re working with paint today and I pick the easel next to Jake’s. It thrills him.“What do you want?”“I want to apologize if you’re offended by the way I am,” I tell him. “But that’s the way I am with everyone. I was just trying to make you feel welcome.”“That’s the crappiest apology I’ve ever heard.”“Well, that’s because I’m not really sorry.”He rolls his eyes. “Right.”

“I think there’s nothing left for me. I don’t think that for everyone else.”“So what do they have that you don’t at this point?”I press my lips together. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to talk about how everyone has something even if they don’t really have it anymore, that what they had makes them strong enough for this, to keep going.”