On Monday, our family dog, Archie, was put to sleep at our neighborhood veterinarian’s office. An X-ray revealed cancer in his lungs and stomach. Made comfortable and wrapped in a blanket from home, he slipped peacefully out of this world. I am unaccustomed to the unpredictability of the swift swells of grief that have surged through me the past few days. Each rush has a unique flavor, showing me pain from new angles and casting piercing light — the kind that is almost too br

Something remarkable happened to me today: I found myself at the Starbucks on Emory’s campus. I tend to avoid it; it may be perfectly situated between my usual lunch spots and the law school, but I find it perpetually dim and faintly dusty, and the cheap lavender scent pumped into its bathrooms makes me feel like I’m in an airport. The music is loud and uncurated, the undergraduates chatter and laugh in serrated bursts, and the baristas treat my drink order as if it were a st