What the work actually required was the opposite of all of that: slowness, and humility, and the willingness to show up for a thousand small unremarkable moments of honesty with no guarantee of what they would add up to.

It is the hardest thing I have ever done.

It does not photograph well.

It will never close in a boardroom.

And it is the only work I have ever done that I am certain was worth the doing.

Chapter 15 — Who Stood Beside You

On the day Christopher was discharged, Dr.

Lindqvist handed us a folder of home-care instructions and smiled.