That was the thing that eventually undid my resistance: he did not push.

He simply stayed.

He stayed close in the quiet, useful ways that grief actually needs.

He helped with my daughter, Camila, who had been so small when her father died.

He fixed the leak under the kitchen sink that I could never get to stop.

He changed the light bulbs in the high fixtures I could not reach.

He brought over meals his mother, Teresa, had cooked, and he sat with us while we ate them, and he asked nothing in return, and he never once made me feel that his kindness came with a bill attached.

Little by little, over months and then years, Camila grew to love him.