I got to pour into him all the love I no longer had anywhere to send.

He did not replace her; nothing could ever replace her.

But he gave my broken heart somewhere to go, and slowly, day by ordinary day, the two of us built a life out of the wreckage, a real life, a good one, a small warm house with a swing set in the yard and pancakes on Sundays and a boy growing up loved.

I did not do it alone in the sense of being unsupported by anyone; there were neighbors who brought casseroles in the early days, and a church that helped, and a few loyal friends who did not disappear the way people sometimes do around grief.