Lena got a new couch. It’s L-shaped, running along the wall, then out, dividing living room from dining room.

She loves the new one but was loath to see the old couch go. The same shape, it had a worn patch at the back of the shorter section. Whenever their family came round, her husband Alec would stand behind the couch, leaning on that spot. “Like a shepherd with his sheep,” Lena told me. “Or a lion with his pride.”

Alec’s been gone two years now. She invited the family round to try the new couch. Her daughters, and her grandchildren filled it with laughter. But her son, Alec Jr, stood where his father always did, perhaps beginning a new worn patch.

“I loved seeing that,” Lena told me. “I didn’t mention it, though. I thought, maybe, I’d let him read it in the paper.”

There you go, Alec.