It is a form that love takes when its object is gone, and the goal was never to be finished with it.

The goal was to carry it well, out in the open, without shame and without letting it swallow us, and to let it sit comfortably alongside all the ordinary joys of a life still being lived.

One evening, cooking dinner together, Hannah looked up at me from the cutting board.

“Dad,” she said.

“Do you still miss Brenda sometimes?”

I gave her the honest answer.

“Part of me misses the person I thought she was, sweetheart.