Perhaps one day we will be able to sit in a room without all of it between us.

But forgiving a thing is not the same as pretending it did not happen, and I will not pretend.

With part of what Raymond left in my care, I built something to carry his name — the Raymond Salgado Memorial Fund, which helps veterans and military families walking the hard road of a terminal illness, so that fewer of them have to walk the end of it alone in a cold house.

At the entrance of our office I hung a photograph of him.

Not the banker in his good suit.

Not the Marine in his decorations.