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This song was sung at the funeral, which is so undeniably heartbreaking. (Also played: a drum circle / a capella version of "Welcome Home.")

When Ryan and I got married, we had my father's Irish folk band play us down the aisle.

We meant to go to Ireland for our honeymoon, but that was the summer of the passport ridiculousness, and we ended up going to Alaska, which was blissfully wonderful too.

Now I find myself longing for a place I've never been to. Longing for green hills, for sheep, for little cottages, for the cliched Ireland, I suppose.

I recently read an article in The New Yorker on grief that I found particularly compelling. It reminds me much of my favorite television show (Six Feet Under), which would often tackle the ritual of hushing up grief, having that separate room in the funeral hall where the bereaved can sob in private. I felt humbled by my tears at Callen's service; I would wipe them quickly with the edges of my wool coat, hoping former students wouldn't notice. But why not? Why not baldly cry at a loss such as this? Why not let grief be the messy thing that it is? We process in a myriad of ways, and I think it's best we allow ourselves the luxury of facing grief in the best way we know how.