It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful. That we could be together for twenty years. That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. “When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife.
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