I turned around and my daughter was leaving home for college. She was eighteen, a pretty, raven haired girl.

We packed her stuff (there was a lot of it) into her red car and our car, too, and drove to the Southern Tier of New York State.

Dan bought walkie-talkies so we could communicate. From time to time, he made her call me to tell me that I was driving too fast. I was aggravated then, but now this memory makes me smile.

I turned around, and it was time to say goodbye. In a cavernous dining hall in Binghamton, we embraced our lovely daughter whose tears mingled with ours.

We drove back home, a four hour trip, alternately crying and driving. Dan kept saying, “Just keep busy. It’s like a death…” I was annoyed by these words, but now I know he was right.

I turned around and my daughter was living on the other side of the continent. Our visits were happy occasions, but too far apart. Dan said, “At least she didn’t move to Alaska.”  And that was our comfort.

I turned around and she became a professor at a University and found her soul mate and life partner.

I turned around, and Dan and I left our friends and family and moved to the land of “always summer.”  We made a new life for ourselves and basked in the sunshine and warmth of friendships. Visits home were joyous and nostalgic.

I turned around and Dan was seriously ill with a life threatening disease. He recovered and we adjusted to our “new normal.”

I turned around and the unwanted visitor came to our door again. He forced his way in and sent our lives into a tailspin.

I turned around, and Dan was a man old before his time, emaciated, lying on his death bed in Hospice House. At first, he knew his life was ebbing away. There came a time when he no longer seemed to understand that, mercifully. But he clung to life like a baby to his mother. His days became a living death.

I turned around, and he was gone. And I was alone.

I turned around, and my life changed in ways I could not have foreseen.