How could you go about choosing something that would hold the half of your heart you had to bury?

The line frames grief as a permanent amputation: after a profound loss, the mourner feels as if part of the self—“half of your heart”—has been buried with the dead. In that state, ordinary decisions (choosing a home, a partner, a future, even a keepsake) become morally and emotionally fraught, because any “choice” seems to require replacing what cannot be replaced. The question’s rhetorical form underscores paralysis and guilt: to choose is to admit life continues, yet continuing can feel like betrayal. Picoult’s phrasing captures how bereavement distorts agency—turning preference into an impossible calculus of loyalty, memory, and survival.