“While I’d been the private one, Chris was the opposite from who I was. She attracted people to her like bees to honey; even after she’d quit the firm she worked in, there was a never-ending stream of people coming to visit us, including her past clients. She was beloved to them, and to my friends, too. She never complained about her illness to me or to anyone; everyone held their questions back about the cancer because they could see she was fighting, furiously, underneath her graceful surface.”

“I’d guessed that she’d suffered greatly from the after-effects of the therapy, but she’d managed to keep that from me. Maybe that’s why she insisted I go back to work, and to do more in the charities that my parents had been involved with, and that I’d resumed being engaged in, in their memory. So that I wouldn’t be around during the day, especially the rough days after each round of therapy. Even the nurses wouldn’t betray her whenever I’d asked about how she was really coping. This was her way of getting through things, so I respected her wishes, and didn’t press.”

“And then one day, out of the clear blue, the week before she’d passed away, she told me that I would be alright. I’d blithely answered that of course I would be alright, I had her in my life. I reminded her that inexplicably, despite everything, she and I were happy, and it showed in me. She’d shaken her head and had given me a sad smile, and then corrected me, “That’s not what I meant, Aerin.”

“You’ve grown so much over the past year and half, she’d said gently. She’d worried at first, that we’d chosen wrongly – that she’d been selfish in going into this relationship with me, knowing that she was sick. But, she’d said, “You showed me, Aerin, through your love that we’d been right in doing things this way – choosing to follow our hearts – and learning about love together. We were right to squeeze everything we could out of the time we had together.”

“She said, ”You taught me that this cancer has nothing to do with important things. With life. And love. And how we choose to live. Or love. With you I accepted love happens. Life happens. Even when it’s about to end.”