This little piece really struck a chord yesterday. I was reading something else earlier, which said something to the effect that when you lose a loved one, you mourn not so much the person lost, but the loss of a loving mirror on your own life. As I work through the whole gymnastics routine, practicing my moves, that rings true—the saddest moments I've had so far are when I contemplate not being able to share my life, all the big events and small, as I've been able to do for nearly 40 years. We all learn to be our own mirrors to some degree, I guess, through these kinds of life passages, but it's hard to lose that big picture of my whole life. And that's the "me, me, me" of it all for tonight. It looks like she'll be coming home the day after tomorrow, and that's enough cause for celebration at the moment.