There is an oldness—and not a good oldness—that settles on a person, even a young person, when they have walked through seasons of grief and disappointment. There is a seriousness that settles on a person when they have felt the weight of loss and responsibility and worry. I felt that weight with John’s death, and I still felt that weight thinking of Jack’s future. I had become an old woman at the age of twenty-eight. But there is also a youth that returns as one grows older. After you’ve lived long enough in this broken-down old world, and seen the vanity
