Baumgartner

“The person is gone, but the pain of the person remains.”

Grief isn't a straight line. It feels more like the phantom limb pain Baumgartner describes after his wife dies. The limb is gone but it still hurts.

Getting older means living in a house full of ghosts. You walk into the kitchen and expect to see someone who has been dead for years. It happens every single day.

“He is a man of seventy-one, and the world is starting to fray at the edges.”

Small accidents can change your entire life path. A fall down the stairs or a burnt pot on the stove feels like a major crisis. Vulnerability sneaks up on you.

Love stays in the objects people leave behind. Baumgartner finds Anna's old poems and suddenly she is back in the room. Clothes and notebooks hold so much life.