They say that, for most people, the second year after you lose someone is harder than the first. During that first year, the theory goes, you’re still in shock. You don’t really believe what’s happened to you has happened; you can’t. During that second year, it starts to sink in that the person—or, in Dan’s case, people—you’ve been pretending are away on a visit aren’t coming back. This wasn’t what happened to me, but I guess that was because I’d been losing Marie for a long
