Her death didn’t come as a surprise: She had been sick for some time and was getting progressively thinner and frailer over the summer and fall. Still, it was impossible to fully prepare for the depth of sorrow I experienced. Mourning her absence was breathtaking in a literal sense; it took the wind out of me. We had inherited each other at the end of a long relationship—my boyfriend of more than a decade had moved out, and Snowflake had stayed. It wasn’t until Snowflake and I were living together, just the two of us, that we forged a deep friendship.

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Persons: Mourning, Snowflake Locations: Snowflake