Road Trips: Becoming an American in the Vapor trail of the Sixties

by Tamim Ansary

I had assumed, like any self-respecting egotist, that no one had ever loved as I had loved or suffered a disappointment like mine. Sure, others had loved and lost, but they hadn’t lost Lily, so what were they whining about? That night, hanging out with the Widow Van Dorn, I realized there were stories of love and loss far exceeding mine. I didn’t have to be convinced about the precious greatness of the late Mr. Van Dorn to appreciate what this woman lost when he died. She didn’t weep about her story, she didn’t lose control, she never even lost the hearty buck-toothed rabbit-like Midwestern goodness she effused when she found me on her doorstep and remembered me as a friend of Ben’s. She never moved from clunky to cool. She only showed me that you don’t have to be cool to suffer profoundly.