“After two years of barely functioning, I wanted my old life back—or as much of it as still remained. For all that time, my company held my job for me. Can you believe that? I still can’t. That was a bright spot in a sea of gray. They welcomed me back with open arms. I found out my parents had paid the rent on our place in Greenwich Village, which was another bright spot. I went back to our home and wallowed in the comfort of being surrounded by Toby’s things. After four years, I asked his parents to come take what they wanted and packed up the rest because it was no longer a comfort to be surrounded by his belongings.

“In the fifth year, I started dating again. That was a comedy of errors with one disaster following another. I felt sorry for the very nice guys my well-meaning friends fixed me up with. They didn’t stand a chance against the fiancé I’d lost so tragically. Still, I went through the motions, mostly because it made the people around me more comfortable with my unending grief. I did what I could to make it better for them, because nothing could make it better for me.

“I became involved in the planning for the memorial, which was somehow cathartic when my rational self knew it probably shouldn’t be. New York slowly recovered, the debris was cleared away, and new construction began. Against all odds, life went on. I still had nightmares about how Toby died. I dreamed about the wedding we’d so looked forward to that hadn’t happened. I went to work, I came home, I went to bed, I got up and did it all again the next day.

“As the tenth anniversary approached, I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t stay in that city, in our apartment, in the job I’d had that day, with the well-meaning people who went out of their way to try to fix the unfixable. I started looking around for something to do that would get me out of the city, something that would get me off the treadmill my life had become. Two weeks before the tenth anniversary, I moved out of our apartment and went home to North Carolina. I couldn’t stay for the dedication of the memorial or all the hoopla that would surround the anniversary. Leaving our apartment and our city for the last time was one of the most difficult moments in a decade of difficult moments.