What it truly was, I can see now, was a man too proud to grieve openly, building an apparatus to make sure grief could not find him.

And the tragedy of that apparatus, the thing I did not understand until I stood in a hospital corridor holding a deleted voicemail, is that a wall built to keep pain out keeps everything out.

It cannot tell the difference between a grieving ex-wife trying to reopen a settlement and a pregnant one trying to tell you that you are going to be a father.

It cannot distinguish the call you dread from the call that would have changed your life.