If late-life love cannot make us invulnerable to everyday misfortunes, what conceivable purpose does it serve?

What month is this, what year? It is the season of sorrow, the year of grieving.

Old lovers know that love does not conquer all, that our intimacy cannot establish a safe haven somewhere, someplace, for us. We are vulnerable to miseries that make us opaque to each other. Yet even if we are stuck or stumped, we are living and learning and loving. And even though there are no remedies, transitional objects prop us up. The apparatuses of the aged—walkers, wigs, hearing aids—become part of us but also not-us. They may not be as treasured as toddlers’ teddy bears or security blankets, but they help us cope with loss.

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