I’ve been moving a little to the music while I worked …and then I realize I am actually dancing. It feels wonderful, though I can feel how stiff my muscles are, how rigidly I’ve been holding myself… Mostly I’ve been moving cautiously, numbly, steeled because I know, at any moment, I may be ambushed by overwhelming grief. You never know when it’s coming, the word or gesture or a bit of memory that dissolved you entirely… It happens every day at first, then not for a day or two, then there’s a week when grief washes in every morning, every afternoon.

Heaven's Coast: A Memoir