I watched a comedian die on stage once. It was with one of those jokes—about a president’s assassination or the Holocaust—where the audience groans because the real punch line is, “Too soon?” But the comparison was of a sexual encounter, “falling faster and flatter than the World Trade Towers.” Most of the audience walked out, the comedian calling out poor one-liners as they left. Later, I skirted the mob at the box office window, because I learned the day I cashed the check for my husband’s life insurance: there is no adequate refund for what’s dead.

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Photo: Daniel Giannone