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?