I got rid of a lot of things, but I kept some. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what the criteria was for deciding what to keep. I don’t know that I even knew I was keeping stuff, maybe I just forgot that it had anything to do with the whole mess. But things take on meaning when you keep them; ask a hoarder. Nobody keeps something because they need it. We don’t actually need much really. But we keep something because it will mean something later, because we kept it.

I don’t know why I have photos. I can remember perfectly well what it felt like and most of what it looked like without the disappointing details, and I don’t even want to remember. George had a green shirt on, Anna had a cold sore, that was the day the rain came down hard, that was the…