“Sometimes the only way to talk about a difficult event is to give ourselves permission to stop when it gets to be too much. Each time you go into it, the hope is that you push yourself a little further.”

Time does not heal all wounds. Grief is just like a sink full of dirty dishes or a pile of soiled laundry. Grief is a chore you have to do, and it’s a messy one, at that.”

The Persistence of Memory is most famous for its depiction of melting clocks, Denise told the crowd that day in the MoMA. Timepieces are meant to be sturdy, solid, orienting us in the world in a reliable, man-made way. But look, Pamela, she said, gesturing, see how Dalí’s clocks are soft and pliant? Time is illogical, subjective, was the interpreta

And I was realizing that any time I wanted to visit Denise in my mind, I would be looking at her and thinking, You’re going to die soon, and I wouldn’t want to see her anymore. My memories of Denise made me feel like I was keeping a terrible secret from her.