An uncomfortable thing has been happening these last several months and a year. None of us has really been able to escape loss. All of us are discovering, whether we want to or not, how difficult it can be to endure losses, and just how capable we usually are of surviving them. But we are all changed already. Returning from exile is like that—the old habits no longer fit—the same old people don’t show up the same old way. Nothing works quite like it did before. It would be hard enough if we were, in the oft-repeated phrase, “all in this...