WEBVTT

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There are three words
that explain why I am here.

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They are "Amy Krouse Rosenthal."

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At the end of Amy's life,

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hyped up on morphine and home in hospice,

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the "New York Times"
published an article she wrote

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for the "Modern Love" column
on March 3, 2017.

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It was read worldwide
by over five million people.

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The piece was unbearably sad,

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ironically funny

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and brutally honest.

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While it was certainly
about our life together,

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the focus of the piece was me.

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It was called, "You May
Want to Marry My Husband."

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It was a creative play
on a personal ad for me.

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Amy quite literally left
an empty space for me to fill

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with another love story.

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Amy was my wife for half my life.

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She was my partner in raising
three wonderful, now grown children,

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and really, she was my girl, you know?

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We had so much in common.

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We loved the same art,

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the same documentaries, the same music.

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Music was a huge part
of our life together.

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And we shared the same values.

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We were in love,

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and our love grew stronger
up until her last day.

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Amy was a prolific author.

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In addition to two groundbreaking memoirs,

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she published over 30 children's books.

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Posthumously, the book she wrote
with our daughter Paris,

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called "Dear Girl,"

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reached the number one position
on the "New York Times" bestseller list.

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She was a self-described tiny filmmaker.

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She was 5'1" and her films
were not that long.

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(Laughter)

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Her films exemplified her natural ability
to gather people together.

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She was also a terrific public speaker,

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talking with children
and adults of all ages

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all over the world.

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Now, my story of grief is only unique
in the sense of it being rather public.

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However, the grieving process itself
was not my story alone.

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Amy gave me permission to move forward,
and I'm so grateful for that.

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Now, just a little over a year
into my new life,

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I've learned a few things.

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I'm here to share with you
part of the process of moving forward

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through and with grief.

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But before I do that,
I think it would be important

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to talk a little bit
about the end of life,

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because it forms how I have been
emotionally since then.

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Death is such a taboo subject, right?

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Amy ate her last meal on January 9, 2017.

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She somehow lived an additional two months

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without solid food.

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Her doctors told us
we could do hospice at home

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or in the hospital.

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They did not tell us that Amy
would shrink to half her body weight,

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that she would never lay
with her husband again,

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and that walking upstairs to our bedroom
would soon feel like running a marathon.

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Home hospice does have an aura of being
a beautiful environment to die in.

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How great that you don't have
the sounds of machines beeping

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and going on and off all the time,

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no disruptions for mandatory
drug administration,

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home with your family to die.

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We did our best to make those weeks
as meaningful as we could.

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We talked often about death.

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Everybody knows it's going
to happen to them, like, for sure,

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but being able to talk openly
about it was liberating.

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We talked about subjects like parenting.

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I asked Amy how I could be the best parent
possible to our children in her absence.

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In those conversations,
she gave me confidence

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by stressing what a great relationship
I had with each one of them,

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and that I can do it.

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I know there will be many times

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where I wish she and I
can make decisions together.

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We were always so in sync.

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May I be so audacious as to suggest

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that you have these conversations now,

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when healthy.

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Please don't wait.

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As part of our hospice experience,
we organized groups of visitors.

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How brave of Amy to receive them,
even as she began her physical decline.

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We had a Krouse night,

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her parents and three siblings.

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Friends and family were next.

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Each told beautiful stories
of Amy and of us.

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Amy made an immense impact
on her loyal friends.

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But home hospice is not so beautiful
for the surviving family members.

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I want to get a little personal here
and tell you that to this date,

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I have memories of those
final weeks that haunt me.

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I remember walking backwards
to the bathroom,

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assisting Amy with each step.

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I felt so strong.

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I'm not such a big guy,

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but my arms looked and felt so healthy
compared to Amy's frail body.

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And that body failed in our house.

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On March 13 of last year,

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my wife died of ovarian cancer in our bed.

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I carried her lifeless body

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down our stairs,

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through our dining room

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and our living room

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to a waiting gurney

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to have her body cremated.

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I will never get that image
out of my head.

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If you know someone who has been
through the hospice experience,

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acknowledge that.

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Just say you heard this guy Jason

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talk about how tough it must be
to have those memories

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and that you're there
if they ever want to talk about it.

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They may not want to talk,

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but it's nice to connect with someone
living each day with those lasting images.

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I know this sounds unbelievable,
but I've never been asked that question.

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Amy's essay caused me
to experience grief in a public way.

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Many of the readers who reached out to me
wrote beautiful words of reflection.

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The scope of Amy's impact
was deeper and richer

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than even us and her family knew.

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Some of the responses I received helped me
with the intense grieving process

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because of their humor,

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like this email I received
from a woman reader

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who read the article, declaring,

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"I will marry you when you are ready --

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(Laughter)

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"provided you permanently stop drinking.

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No other conditions.

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I promise to outlive you.

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Thank you very much."

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Now, I do like a good tequila,
but that really is not my issue.

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Yet how could I say no to that proposal?

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(Laughter)

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I laughed through the tears when I read
this note from a family friend:

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"I remember Shabbat dinners at your home

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and Amy teaching me
how to make cornbread croutons.

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Only Amy could find
creativity in croutons."

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(Laughter)

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On July 27, just a few months
after Amy's death,

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my dad died of complications

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related to a decades-long battle
with Parkinson's disease.

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I had to wonder: How much
can the human condition handle?

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What makes us capable
of dealing with this intense loss

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and yet carry on?

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Was this a test?

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Why my family and my amazing children?

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Looking for answers, I regret to say,
is a lifelong mission,

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but the key to my being able to persevere

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is Amy's expressed and very public edict

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that I must go on.

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Throughout this year,
I have done just that.

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I have attempted to step out
and seek the joy and the beauty

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that I know this life
is capable of providing.

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But here's the reality:

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those family gatherings,

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attending weddings
and events honoring Amy,

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as loving as they are,

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have all been very difficult to endure.

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People say I'm amazing.

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"How do you handle yourself
that way during those times?"

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They say, "You do it with such grace."

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Well, guess what?

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I really am sad a lot of the time.

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I often feel like I'm kind of a mess,

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and I know these feelings
apply to other surviving spouses,

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children, parents

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and other family members.

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In Japanese Zen, there is a term "Shoji,"

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which translates as "birth death."

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There is no separation
between life and death

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other than a thin line
that connects the two.

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Birth, or the joyous,
wonderful, vital parts of life,

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and death, those things
we want to get rid of,

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are said to be faced equally.

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In this new life that I find myself in,

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I am doing my best to embrace this concept
as I move forward with grieving.

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In the early months
following Amy's death, though,

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I was sure that the feeling of despair
would be ever-present,

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that it would be all-consuming.

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Soon I was fortunate
to receive some promising advice.

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Many members of the losing-a-spouse club

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reached out to me.

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One friend in particular who had also
lost her life partner kept repeating,

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"Jason, you will find joy."

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I didn't even know
what she was talking about.

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How was that possible?

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But because Amy gave me
very public permission

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to also find happiness,

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I now have experienced joy
from time to time.

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There it was, dancing the night away
at an LCD Soundsystem concert,

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traveling with my brother and best friend
or with a college buddy on a boys' trip

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to meet a group of great guys
I never met before.

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From observing that my deck had sun
beating down on it on a cold day,

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stepping out in it, laying there,

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the warmth consuming my body.

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The joy comes from my three
stunning children.

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There was my son Justin,

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texting me a picture of himself
with an older gentleman

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with a massive, strong forearm
and the caption, "I just met Popeye,"

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with a huge grin on his face.

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(Laughter)

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There was his brother Miles,
walking to the train

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for his first day of work
after graduating college,

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who stopped and looked
back at me and asked,

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"What am I forgetting?"

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I assured him right away,
"You are 100 percent ready. You got this."

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And my daughter Paris,

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walking together
through Battersea Park in London,

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the leaves piled high,

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the sun glistening in the early morning
on our way to yoga.

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I would add that beauty
is also there to discover,

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and I mean beauty of the wabi-sabi variety

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but beauty nonetheless.

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On the one hand, when I see something
in this category, I want to say,

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"Amy, did you see that? Did you hear that?

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It's too beautiful
for you not to share with me."

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On the other hand,

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I now experience these moments

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in an entirely new way.

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There was the beauty I found in music,

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like the moment in the newest
Manchester Orchestra album,

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when the song "The Alien"

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seamlessly transitions
into "The Sunshine,"

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or the haunting beauty
of Luke Sital-Singh's "Killing Me,"

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whose chorus reads,

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"And it's killing me
that you're not here with me.

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I'm living happily,
but I'm feeling guilty."

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There is beauty in the simple moments
that life has to offer,

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a way of seeing that world
that was so much a part of Amy's DNA,

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like on my morning commute,

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looking at the sun
reflecting off of Lake Michigan,

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or stopping and truly seeing
how the light shines

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at different times of the day

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in the house we built together;

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even after a Chicago storm,
noticing the fresh buildup of snow

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throughout the neighborhood;

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or peeking into my daughter's room

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as she's practicing the bass guitar.

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Listen, I want to make it clear
that I'm a very fortunate person.

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I have the most amazing family
that loves and supports me.

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I have the resources for personal growth
during my time of grief.

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But whether it's a divorce,

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losing a job you worked so hard at

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or having a family member die suddenly

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or of a slow-moving and painful death,

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I would like to offer you

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what I was given:

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a blank of sheet of paper.

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What will you do
with your intentional empty space,

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with your fresh start?

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Thank you.

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(Applause)