HIC ILLAE LACRIMAE

This is the last paragraph of The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason.
"Then I place the receiver back in its cradle and stare out the window again. There will be bags to pack, travel agents to call, new pictures to take. Even as I begin to realise the magnitude of what I'm doing, a thought occurs to me. Somewhere in the city of rebirth, Paul is lifting himself out of bed, staring out his window, and waiting. There are pigeons cooing on rooftops, cathedral bells tolling from towers in the distance. We are sitting here, continents apart, the same way we always did: at the edges of our mattresses, together. On the ceilings where I am going there will be saints and gods and flights of angels. Everywhere I walk there will be reminders of all that time can't touch. My heart is a bird in a cage, ruffling its wings with the ache of expectation. In Italy, the sun is rising."

It killed me. It wrenches my gut still. It took me back to last summer, and the elation when I was accepted to the classics post-bacc program, and the subsequent devastation when I discovered I couldn't go.
It reminded me of the end of my fourth semester of Greek, when I was present as my grad student tutor and the professor I had for third semester where making plans for the summer. They said they'd meet on Mount Parnassus.