I follow, and have for years and years, a nerd-culture stick-figure comic strip called xkcd. It doesn’t stand for anything.

Ten years ago, the author posted cryptically about a family illness.

The following spring he elaborated: It was his fiancee, and it was stage III breast cancer. Both of them were very young — mid 20s — this was, as he notes, seriously bolt-from-the-blue territory.

One of his more famous comics, called Lanes, came not long after, in summer 2011, along with a more lighthearted take on the process. The following summer, he ran Emotion.

Then, in 2012, he published Two Years.

And in 2017, he followed with Seven Years.

This month, he wrote Ten Years.

Hope and joy and grace can be found, even in weird, dark times.