I called my mother at the rehabilitation center. Tomorrow she will be transferred to a nursing home for a little while. When she leaves there, she will return to her house, and then I will go to Dallas. She has COPD and is approaching the end stage.

She is 84, and has been lonely for my father for 14 years. Today she could barely breathe well enough to keep up a phone conversation.

We expect to be orphans by the end of this year. Maybe that's why I've been lightly depressed this year.