You Do Not Immortalize The Lost By

I Nodded. I Liked Augustus Waters. I Really, Really, Really Liked Him. I Liked The Way His Story Ended With Someone Else. I Liked His Voice. I Liked That He Took Existentially Fraught Free Throws. I Liked That He Was A Tenured Professor In The Department Of Slightly Crooked Smiles With A Dual Appointment In The Department Of Having A Voice That Made My Skin Feel More Like Skin. And I Liked That He Had Two Names. I’ve Always Liked People With Two Names, Because You Get To Make Up Your Mind What You Call Them: Gus Or Augustus? Me, I Was Always Just Hazel, Univalent Hazel.

You Get All These Friends Just When You Don’t Need Friends Anymore.

It Is Easy To Forget How Full The World Is Of People, Full To Bursting, And Each Of Them Imaginable And Consistently Misimagined.

That's What I Realized: If I Did Get Her Back Somehow, She Wouldn't Fill The Hole That Losing Her Created.

I Needed, I Decided, To Really Know Her, Because I Needed More To Remember. Before I Could Begin The Shameful Process Of Forgetting The How And The Why Of Her Living And Dying, I Needed To Learn It: How. Why. When. Where. What.