If the sixth and final stage of grief is acceptance, then being able to remember a departed loved one in their happiest moments might be a sign you’ve arrived at that final plateau of sorrow. At the very least, you are remembering that loved one when he or she was happiest, and good memories like these bring their own comfort.

   Carol has gotten used to me asking about Mike, so she might be a bit further along in the process of memory’s healing grace.

If three weeks in Europe on twelve trains to seven French cities with me didn’t reveal to Carol why she should hit LAX running and just keep running, I should probably conclude we’re a good match. There would be precedent. After all, I’d spent five years with Carolyn fully expecting to hear her crying out in a dream, “the horror, the horror!” That never happened, so I guess I should feel pretty good about Carol and I as a couple. I do, but it’s not because I at all believe I bring any special gifts or skills to any relationship, let alone this one. The grounds for success, I truly believe, were, as they say, pre-existing conditions for Carol and I to become a team.

  Do you have any idea how many silver Prius’s there are on the road? At one point over the past months, I started to count how many I saw.  There were more than two hundred over a few weeks.
  Mike drove a silver Prius. He loved his car. He bragged about the mileage he would get.