It’s a cold, spare morning today, just like the other cold, spare mornings that preceded it this week. There’s nary a breeze, and it’s setting up to be a nice day. Should be easy on a personal level as well. I have a doctor’s appointment this morning, a friend is stopping by this afternoon, and this evening I have my first teleconference with a grief support group. Somewhere in there I’ll also have to work in an AC person because, one of my thermostats went out yesterday. Luckily, it only controls part of the house and I like wearing sweaters.

Looking out further than today, I got word late last week that my wife’s monument, tombstone if you want to be more precise, will probably come in this week. It will be nice to get that done, although it will be odd to see my name beside hers, waiting for the day of my demise to complete the script. But that’s everyone’s story and I’m not being singled out. My aunt and uncle in the section behind us had their stone set years before either of them said good-bye, and my father is buried at Fort Sam, with my mother, in the same grave, and she got her name on the front of the stone in 1968 because she was an officer, and he didn’t get there until 2006.

And if you think that’s not enough about death and destruction, today is Pearl Harbor day where 2,403 people died in the attack and it’s also the day last year where a friend of mine lost her husband. And about that friend coming over this afternoon, his wife died in January of this year. But you know what? We’re all on the same conveyor belt and eventually it will run out and there’s no getting around it. So, I’m going to finish my coffee, eat some breakfast, pet the cat, and go stand outside for a bit in the bracing air of a cold, spare morning.