" The caesura of death is the point where legacy and memory begin, and the lament the source of every culture by which we seek to fill the now gaping void, the sudden silence with chants, prayers, and stories in which the absent one is brought back to life. Like a hollow mold, the experience of loss renders visible the contours of the thing mourned, and it is not uncommon for it to be transformed by the transfigurative light of sorrow into an object of desire... "

― Judith Schalansky , An Inventory of Losses