The idea is to tie Rebecca’s memory not only to loss, but to new places and to new joy, to let her go on being a part of our lives moving forward rather than only a sadness we look back on.

I think Rebecca would have liked that, the turning of her birthday into an adventure rather than a vigil.

She was not a woman who wanted to be mourned in a darkened room; she was a woman who loved new places and bad jokes and dessert before dinner, and it seemed right to remember her by doing the things she loved rather than only by staring at the fact of her absence.

And it gave Hannah something crucial, too: it taught her that remembering her mother did not have to hurt, that grief and joy were allowed to occupy the same day, that you could carry a loss and still climb a mountain and laugh at the top of it.