Sweet, sweet readers, how did I ever get so lucky? Oh my. I wish I could stand in front of you in person right now and give you each a big, sobby, grateful hug. Thank you for your comments and emails: believe me when I tell you that I truly felt love surround me as I read them all. I'm speechless at your empathy and generosity. I've got tears in my eyes just thinking about it.

And for the first time in weeks, this morning when I woke up so early that it was still dark out, I felt my stomach growl instead of sink with the realization of another day ahead of me. That's hopeful, isn't it? A few of you suggested a change in my daily routine, so instead of gulping down a bowl of cereal while standing in the hallway, I got up and made blueberry pancakes instead. (The daily swim will have to wait until next week when we *finally finally finally* go visit my mother in Italy.)

The pancakes weren't all that great (from the Fannie Farmer cookbook and a perfectly fine basic pancake recipe until someone came along wanting to use up random flours from her pantry, subbing Italian 00 flour and whole wheat flour for the regular all-purpose flour called for, cheeky monkey) and the blueberries all clumped together in a soggy little puddle on the underside of the pancakes, but they were warm and sweet and rather comforting nevertheless, and I ate them out on the balcony while the rest of my neighborhood still slept. Steam curled off my cup of tea and the herbs on the table moved intermittently in the early morning wind and I suddenly felt some peace.

Sadness is a bitch, isn't it? I was particularly moved by how many of you chimed in with your own admissions of struggling with it. Community, for lack of a better word, is an amazing thing and it does make a burden, any burden, easier to bear when you realize that you aren't entirely alone. Thank you, friends. I'd like to make you all blueberry pancakes and have you over to breakfast on my balcony with me.