It must be difficult to be a mother,” she continued thoughtfully. “To create and nurture and raise a tiny person, to invest all of your heart in it, only to have them grow up and not need you anymore. It must hurt to feel that kind of abandonment. To be forced to let go because of time and nature and the well-being of… both the child and the mother, I suppose?

It wasn’t one event, but a series of events followed by years of research adjudicated by panels of experts and committees of laypeople until a decision was finally made: we’ve been going about handling dead people all wrong.

Some people just live out their whole lives with some sort of ache in their heart they never resolve.

Like the feeling of a carbonated beverage slipping down the throat, the bubbles rushing and popping as they make their descent, the air around a departed spirit fizzles, dissipating from a thick electric presence to an ephemeral blink of light and color, like the aftereffect of too many flash cameras going off at once.

He holds his hand out for me to see it like he’s cradling something delicate or breakable, an egg or like, his heart.