Grace was not the weight I carried; she was the thing that made the weight bearable.

On the nights when the arithmetic did not work and the future looked like a wall with no door in it, it was the small warm fact of her, breathing in the next room, that kept me from going under.

A person can endure almost anything if they have a reason, and she was mine, complete and sufficient, from the first moment I held her.

Whatever I gave up in those years, and I gave up a great deal, I never once counted her among the costs.