ONE OF THE GRUBBY TRUTHS about a loss is that you don’t just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you most. Jim kept saying, “I am sorry for all the things your mother is going to miss”—and he would list them. And I would think: I am a sorry excuse for a daughter. I just think about how I miss her. I’m sorry for myself, sorry about losing a life where I always had a mom to go to. Whatever the case, in grief you’re not just reconstituting the lost person, recalling her, then letting her go—you’re having to
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