As one who does well to get a sympathy card in the mail within a month of the burial, I am amazed and touched by those busy people who have given so freely of their time in the past six weeks.

Collectively they have passed along cell phone numbers and actually urged me to use them ”any time of the day or night,” taken an hour or two out for tea, just to talk, and offered to come over “with a coloring book, just for stress relief.”

Not everyone “does death” well. Some of us wonder what to say or do, feel terrified that what we say might start a flood of tears, and then what? We feel vaguely guilty about the card we did not send, or sent too late.

So I’m in awe of these fearless ones, often the busiest among us, who step right up with a hug and most important, with their time. When I grow up, I want to be just like them.