Spoilers: So many fluffy words to say so little. I thoroughly enjoyed the summary I read afterwards, that took one minute to explain this novella. Not that I'm normally against words being added for flair, but this was boooooring!! It could summed up like this:

This dude met a lady and told her that he always worried that something huge and horrible was going to happen to him in his life . He was all about himself and didn't notice her as a potential partner, but as a confidant. They spoke of the potential horrible thing for years. She dies. He's sad he doesn't have a confidant. At the cemetery he sees a man who is horribly grieving about someone and it occurs to the man that the horrible thing in his life was that he didn't love anyone or anything passionately.

Moral of the story?: Fall in love with your confidant instead of being a self important asshat.