If human relationality formed the bedrock of meaning, it seemed to us that rearing children added another dimension to that meaning.

We each joked to close friends that the secret to saving a relationship is for one person to become terminally ill. Conversely, we knew that one trick to managing a terminal illness is to be deeply in love—to be vulnerable, kind, generous, grateful.

What are you most afraid or sad about?" she asked me one night as we were lying in bed."Leaving you," I told her.

I asked him, “Can you breathe okay with my head on your chest like this?” His answer was “It’s the only way I know how to breathe.

There is a tension in the Bible between justice and mercy, between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the New Testament says you can never be good enough: goodness is the thing, and you can never live up to it. The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.