I'll go over again and again until I've finally crossed to where he is

All of the things that were shown in early studies to be good for longevity—happy marriages, healthy bodies—are ours to have. We live long,good lives. We die on our eightieth birthdays, surrounded by our families, before dementia sets in. Cancer, heart disease, and most debilitatingillnesses are almost entirely eradicated. This is as close to perfect as any society has ever managed to get.

And it is strange that absence can feel like presence.

If you love someone, if someone loved you, if they taught you to write and made it so you could speak, how can you do nothing at all? You might as well take their words out of the dirt and try to snatch them from the wind.Because once you love, it is gone. You love and you cannot call it back.

Writing, painting, singing - it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death's footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.