It doesn’t get any better — you just get used to it.”

Hearing this a couple of months after the death of my wife, Ella Tulin, was like a kick in the stomach, but over the succeeding year there were many occasions when this phrase was the only solid anchor in an emotional turmoil.

As one old enough to be entitled to a senior discount (for cash) at Shirley’s Hardware, the activity of sanding new drywall corners at the top of a stairwell is likely to provoke some philosophical musing. So it was that on the Friday after Thanksgiving I was ruminating on the nature and meaning of that holiday.