One was from Evan Ryan, one of my former staff members. She sent me a note, quoting a poem. “I stood watching as the little ship sailed out to sea,” it read. “The setting sun tinted his white sails with a golden light, and as he disappeared from sight a voice at my side whispered, ‘He is gone.’” The disappearance did not mark an end, but another beginning, in a new and unknown place. “On the farther shore a little band of friends had gathered to watch and wait in happy expectation.” I found myself imagining Neilia, and Beau’s baby sister, Naomi, and my own mother and father standing on that
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