I don’t have the energy to run around in a leotard and anklets, but I see how old people get used to dust and stickiness, mild filth and mildewed towels. It’s not because they are too blind or weak to do anything about these problems necessarily but because they have just seen too much. When you’ve buried all your closest friends, how worked up can you get about a trace of lipstick on a coffee cup or a ribbon of dust on the frame of the photo of someone you’ll never see again? You’ve buried two wives and two brothers who loved you and left you—how seriously can you take the worn spot (now sort of a hole) at the back of the chair? Perspective is useful, of course: It’s why very few people want to be eighteen again. But the other side is having so much perspective, it’s hard to give a damn about anything happening here in the real.

― Amy Bloom, In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss (Random House, March 8, 2022)

Notes:

• Portrait of Amy Bloom and Brian Ameche along with Background story: People.com – Novelist Amy Bloom Shares ‘Excruciating’ Journey After Her Ailing Husband Chose to Die By Assisted Suicide
• NY Times Book of the Week: When Her Husband Said He wanted to Die, Amy Bloom Listened