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It was his wisdom made you need the sun. It was his goodness made you need the sea. So need comes after generosity, not before it. I remember everything you read, one student said, because it was all about loss. But her tears came of allergies. Small boy in a large piece of luggage in a Chiswick flat, laughing. And then something happened, he'd say. Now he holds my book up to Facetime, wonders when he'd use that phrase. There'd be volcanoes and explosions and then something happened. To say I have my memories is not to say where they are. Not in luggage, not in the fire safe, not here. They are what I have while losing them. Our vet brought flowers with the cat's ashes, and a paw print in clay. Sangha knelt down, touched its impress. The mark is gift and grief, the gift of.

--6 March 2015