My late husband would have been 86 today, but he would never have lived this long. I've always been aware of milestones because I am a this-time-last-year-ten years-whatever kind of person. I must admit, though, that the pain fades and the memory becomes more nostalgic than painful. That's when I start on the what-if path. What if he had lived, what then? Well, that's when fantasy begins. I have no idea, really, where I - or my challenged son, Matt - would be. Too many decisions, too many events for me to predict what might have happened. That was then, this is now, and what might have happened inbetween is by this time not only hypothetical but also metaphysical. I'm here, so are you. Where do we go from here? Next.

Well, next is why I missed my blog yesterday. It was a very busy day, and had nothing to do with Mother's Day, which my family celebrated the day before. There are days when you go from one thing to another without stopping, without transition, and by the time it's over you wonder where the time went. The question is: did you learn anything? The answer is yes, so maybe it was useful. I've told you before about my father, that I had to justify my existence each day. I'm not sure that I justified mine but a lot of people justified theirs, and I'm grateful to them. And today I get a chance to atone. Did I mention it's Bill's birthday?

When it's ajar. You know the letters people write at Christmas when they report on the year that was. I think they began the custom because they got tired of repeating themselves and word processors/printers made it possible for them to give the news without the tedium of writing the same thing over and over again. Well, I started writing a seasonal letter every season or so, at first with a six-month interval, then more frequently if I had something I wanted to say. For a time there, I produced it almost monthly and I called it a generic letter, that is, a one-size- fits-all update. Right now I'm a bit (several months) behind on this personal newsletter, keeping in touch with distant friends. I also keep a diary, not a deathless document by any means, and less than it was at first. I began it in earnest about eight hours after my husband died so suddenly and it kept me sane. It remains my daily report to myself and keeps my finger on my pulse. And then along comes blog. The trick is to know the difference between these discrete communiqués. They are discreet, too, and comfortable for me to write and you to read. I'm going to sort them all out soon. I just have to keep on filling in the blanks in whatever medium I choose to write, keeping my options open, chief now among them being my blog - open, that is, ajar.