We made a choice to do joy on purpose. Not in spite of life’s sorrows. But because of them.

And it really did help.

Not that our lives were all magically fixed. Babette still missed Max, and grieved for him, and would for the rest of her life. Tina still—inexplicably—missed Kent Buckley, or, at least, the idea of him. Alice still had to live much of her life with Marco deployed half a world away. Clay still had kids at school calling him Brainerd.

And even after Duncan and Chuck Norris moved into my little carriage house with me, Duncan still had nightmares, and I still had seizures.

We didn’t fix everything for each other—but we didn’t have to.

We just made a choice to be there.

Which counted for a lot.

Max had always joked that if anyone ever made a statue of him, he’d want it to be a fountain—of him peeing. But the board, even with Babette at the helm, just couldn’t run with that idea.

We held on to his memory in other ways. We decided to hold an annual, disco-themed dance party in his honor. We hung a painting Babette had done of him in the office. And Babette painted a colorful mural on the playground fence with everybody’s favorite Max-ism: “Never miss a chance to celebrate.”

Did we miss chances to celebrate after that? Did we get caught up in our worries and our petty arguments and ourselves?

Of course. We were only human.

But we tried our best—again and again and again—to choose joy on purpose. Just like Max would have wanted.

And, of course, I didn’t quit my job, or leave my island, or give up on courage. I stayed, and I chose the people I loved over and over. For better and for worse.

But mostly for better.