I think she was afraid to love sometimes. I think it scared her. She was the type to like things that were concrete, like the ocean. Something you could point to and know what it was...and I think that's why she also struggled with love. She couldn't touch it. She couldn't hold onto it and make sure it never changed.

Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can't. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check his watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. Man alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.

Go after her. Shoot, don't sit there and wait for her to call. Go after her because that's what you do if you love someone. Don't wait for them to give you a sign because it might never come. Don't let people happen to you. Don't let me happen to you, or her. She's not a television show or a tornado. There are people I might have loved had they gotten on the plane or run down the street after me or called me up at four in the morning because they need to tell me right now and because they cannot regret this. And I always thought I'd be the one going crazy things for people who would never give enough of a crap to do it back, or to act like an idiot, or be entirely vulnerable and honest. And making someone fall in love with you isn't easy, and flying 3000 miles on four days notice because you can't just sit there and do nothing, and breathing into telephones is not everyone's idea of love but it's the way I can recognize it because that's what I do. Go scream it and be with her in meaningful ways because that is beautiful and that is generous and that is what loving someone is. That is raw and that is unguarded, and that is all that's worth anything, really.

Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible. She believed that once too, back when she was eighteen. But she knew that love was messy, just like life. It took turns that people couldn't foresee or even understand, leaving a long trail of regret in its wake. And almost always, those regrets led to the kind of "what if" questions that could never be answered.

The greater the love, the greater the tragedy when it's over.