“What you leave behind is not what is engraved on stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”  Pericles

This birthday got to me.  It’s never those clean, easy numbers, like 30 or 50 that do it.  Instead, odd ones sneak up on me, like 45, the age at which my mother died (subconsciously assuming I wouldn’t live past the exact number of days she had.)  21 meant nothing, but 28 meant I was really an adult. 53 hit hard.  By the most optimistic estimates, I’m halfway through. […]