Death is the calm presence of a male nurse in the hospital room at 3 am describing the act: “You take a breath and die.”

Grief is the dull ache deep inside the soul that is always there, sometimes forgotten, but never ignored when it makes its presence known.

Love is the compulsion to drive all day, on icy roads, to say goodbye.

*Another draft I found in the Dashboard. written July 3, 2010. I was really hurting back then. I am better now.