I sparkle.

Everyone keeps asking me if I saw it coming. I guess it's fair to say that I did, in a very general sense. But was I specifically *expecting* it? No. I think I had conditioned myself not to anticipate such events any longer. Nothing good had ever come from it in the past.

So on this sultry Florida morning, when the humidity already hung heavy in the air at 9am, when he mentioned stopping at a bench overlooking the lake where we were taking our usual weekend walk, I thought he was ready for a break, in the shade. (We've never needed a rest before--it's only three miles around--but as I said, it was a rather oppressive morning.) And then, I thought he had dropped something on the ground, though I couldn't imagine what. I was wrong.