Nora McInerny

It's this invisible thread of calm that connects the two of us even when everything is chaos, when things are falling apart, even when he's gone.

That stays with you.

We used to do this thing, because my hands are always freezing and he's so warm, where I would take my ice-cold hands and shove them up his shirt, press them against his hot bod.

And he hated it so much, but he loved me.

And after he died, I laid in bed with Aaron, and I put my hands underneath him, and I felt his warmth.

And I can't even tell you, if my hands were cold, that I can tell you that I knew it was the last time I would ever do that.

And that that memory is always going to be sad.

That memory will always hurt, even when I'm 600 years old and I'm just a hologram.

Just like the memory of meeting him is always going to make me laugh.

Grief doesn't happen in this vacuum, it happens alongside of and mixed in with all of these other emotions.

So I met Matthew, my current husband.

He doesn't love that title.

But it's so accurate.

I met Matthew, and ...

there's this audible sigh of relief among the people who love me, like, it's over.

She did it.

She got a happy ending.

We can all go home.

And we did good.

And that narrative is so appealing even to me.