Thanks to you I don't have to watch either of those scenarios play out while perched on a cloud fighting with God to let me intercede,or spend eterni… - Mary-Louise Parker

I don’t believe in endings, happy or sad, so my relationships with you continue to this day. They are the kind of relationships you have with a pair of skis you know you’ll never have to strap to yourself again. Maybe you never really liked skiing, but enjoyed being a person who could say, “Looks like I’ll be hitting the slopes this weekend!” So you kept on even though it cost too much to get down a hill. Gave you windburn. I see nothing weird about keeping those skis in the basement. They offer a little nostalgia for crappier times. More importantly, they serve as a reminder that I no longer have to ski.

be careful of thinking about people as “kinds of people”?

I can’t take credit for more than remembering to point to you when I do something right and for continuing to put one foot in front of the other when I lose heart.