I know I’m supposed to write about professional development and the impact of the institutes. I am sorry I missed the third, as I would have liked to have heard from the people who develop the policies that drive education in our state and country. But otherwise, I’m empty tonight. And have been for the past couple of weeks. Each time I sit down to write, nothing.

My father in law is dying. He has been battling cancer for the past year, and the war is nearly over. His liver is failing. His kidneys are failing. He is a tiny sliver of his former self, frail, unable to eat, drifting in and out of consciousness. It is a matter of weeks at most. Days are not out of the question.

Yesterday, we drove to DC so the children could see him one final time. So my husband could stay with his mother and help with whatever remains to try. So I could say goodbye to the man who made me feel welcomed into the family nearly 20 years ago when Mark and I were in college.

My children didn’t know that goodbye would be their last. But I do. And he knew, too.

I write this, not as a way of an excuse for having nothing to say about pd, nor as a way of explanation, nor as a plea for attention/sympathy/whatever, but simply because I need to. When you are the wife-and-mother, you are the comforter, the shoulder to cry on, the rock. You absorb others’ tears. You do not have your own.

So, my takeaway right now, if I have one, is that I am human, ultimately as frail as the man I am honored to call my family. I am not a rock, though I might pretend to be one for the ones I love. I will cry words. And that is all I can say right now.