“In love wasn’t a phrase. It was how they lived, wrapped in the warm, soft blanket of mutual adoration, and, in this moment, on this evening, nothing else mattered. They were untouchable, golden, immortal. He would love her for the rest of his life, and he knew, with absolute certainty, that she would love him the rest of hers.However long or short a time that would be.”

The warmth Josh feels in his life with Lauren stands in sharp contrast to the February cold in New England when Lauren dies. Through asyndeton, he describes himself and his wife with superlative adjectives, which create tragic irony because Lauren’s terminal illness precludes her from living a long life, much less an immortal one. His final words foreshadow the imminent end of Lauren’s life.

“Dead. The word sounded exactly like what it was. Hard. Flat. Ugly and cold.”

In this short paragraph, Josh comes abruptly back to reality after seeing reminders of his wife in their apartment and in his dreams. The short, staccato rhythm of death’s description mirrors Josh’s jarring transition back to reality when he remembers his wife is gone. The descriptors create a multi-sensory experience in which one can not only visualize but also feel the chill and texture of death.

“As he followed the instructions, mixing his wife with the additive and soil provided by the living urn company, he was almost cheerful. He could picture her coming in. ‘What are you doing, hon?’ 

‘I’m planting your tree.’

‘Oh! Cool! Make sure the roots aren’t too squished.’

‘You got it, babe,’ he said aloud.”

Josh speaks to his deceased wife while planting her ashes, indicating his intense connection to her at this moment. The apostrophe directed at Lauren generates a dramatic and emotional effect, showing his sense of loss and grief. The urn, replete with ashes and beginnings of a dogwood tree, symbolizes their love and underscores a central theme of the novel, the