A story, I had learned, through my own constant knitting and reknitting of remembered words, can lead us back to ourselves, to our lost innocence, and in the shadow it casts over our present world, we begin to understand what we only intuited in our naivete-that while all else may vanish, love is our one eternity.

Love hides in all sorts of places, in the most sorrowful corner of your heart, in the darkest and most hopeless situation

... love is our one eternity. It reflects itself in joy and grief, in my father's sudden knowledge that he would not live to protect me, and in his determination to leave behind a part of himself - his spirit, his humanity - to illuminate my path, give light to my darkened world.

He supposes in this way he's learned to pray not as one might to the gods but as one does by simply pausing every now and then to think of others.