“And how does the story end?” I once asked her during a phone conversation that now seems to have been taking place years ago. She told me that she wasn’t sure what would happen to the bright design stuident who had had a troubled life but had at last found her soul mate. There must be more to the story. Unfortunately, perhaps now we’ll never know. For even though I’m not sure it’s entirely over, I am here to tell you how the story ends.

Lately I’ve been thinking rather deeply about what my life would sound like if it had a soundtack. Currently, as I sit here on the Metra as it chugs home to Hyde Park, I think it would be Josh Rouse’s "Rise". Listen carefully to the lyrics of that song and you’ll have some idea of what happened after I wrote that optimistic passage in my last entry. Perhaps in the comtemplation of that song we encounter the important lesson to learn from all this: no matter how singular we believe our experiences to be, there’s always some beautiful archetype of the event somewhere out there. In some senses this is a comforting notion: we have not been alone in our grief.

The train is coming to my stop. I don’t know when I’ll at last post the story of how it ended, but post I will. I am still not entirely sure that it is over, but I am trying to face the future with the belief that I will find someone else as wonderful as she.

I am trying very hard.