“If not you, then who? If not now, when?” — Hillel the Elder. It began with a small blackberry bush. Just a slender, spiked vine growing by the roadside at the western entrance to my town.

I sit here beside my broken heart and try to write the story of Hansel. A task made tougher because it feels as though a piece of it has left with him.

I said those words twice today. The first time came when I dropped my head to Gwendolyn’s side, her chest no longer moving and her heart still, as mine went into overdrive. No, no, no. We weren’t expecting to lose her today. Not today.