For the third time in my life I was in love with a girl named Shelley, and for the second time, I was at her funeral. The first had died in an accident, and this one died over an agonizingly longer period. Cancer, or so they first thought at the time. I was sitting in my car outside the funeral home, trying to find the courage to face everyone inside. I had lost more than Shelley the last time, and so I wasn’t sure I had anyone left to lose. But I was afraid to find out. And, as the universe usually has proven, my fears were justified. Because later that day, I was going to lose myself.