Today as my bus went by the Nichols Arboretum I said my customary silent hello to my folks.  (There’s a memorial to them there.)  It was an almost sunny day, warm for mid-December.  In my head I told my Mom that it would have been a good day for me to take a walk down to the river and visit them, but I didn’t have time today.  I promise next semester I’ll stop by a couple of times, but today  I needed to get ready for a class presentation.  As the bus rounded the next corner it suddenly occured to me how often I had said something similar to my mother when she was alive.  I don’t have time to visit right now, but I promise that I will soon.  Soon….maybe next month, next summer, next year, next Christmas, but not right now.  So many times I could have made the time but I didn’t. 

Tears threatened, but I concentrated on the elderly lady in the front of the bus who was rocking frantically.  I couldn’t start to cry now, I had a presentation to do today, and it’s hard to look professional with puffy eyes and a red nose.  Sometimes you just have to reach way down in your soul and pull yourself up, grab a piece of guts and hang on.  The presentation went fine.  And the tears, well, they began in earnest on the long dark ride home.