One summer day， when I was 25， I searched my family’s house for something to read. Scanning the contents of an old pile of books that a housekeeper had long ago boxed and put in a closet， my eyes caught on a familiar 13）spine， and I slipped it free. In my hands was the journal we had given my grandmother， 13 years before.
I held my breath as I cracked open the front cover， hoping for something impossible—a story of her life？ A full account of everything she wanted me to know？ On the very first page my grandmother had written two 14）cryptic sentences：“Function in disaster. Finish in style.” The rest of those dusty， gilded pages were blank.
Function in disaster. Finish in style. I Googled those words and learned that they were not originally hers—it was a quote from a famous American schoolteacher. Why had my grandmother written it？
Maybe it was just something she 15）jotted down， some 16）aphorism she heard， liked and wished to remember. Still， preceding the hundreds of empty pages of her journal， it was impossible not to read those two short， imperative sentences as an 17）epigraph， or else a concluding moral， to the blanked story of her life.
Function in disaster. Finish in style. I imagined my grandmother in the chaotic midst of her adult life， with four young daughters and a husband in a mental asylum， barely managing， and yet never relinquishing the coolly radiant elegance that is so plainly visible in any photograph of her.
Function in disaster. Finish in style. The spirit of that sentiment attached to the few facts I knew about her history， and more images and words came—I knew they were more the imagined stuff of my own hopes and worries than actual history， but they felt indelible. I wrote them down.
Function in disaster. Finish in Style： it might only have been a simple quotation， words that were not even her own， but it became the Rosetta Stone by which I translated her silence into my imagination. Soon I had filled three hundred blank pages， a book I titled The Storm at the Door.