Alpha, Omega.

Well, not too much has been going on since the last journal.

Not too much, that is, if you don't count my mother's funeral and my wife's positive pregnancy test.

Mom's situation deteriorated after moving back to Westfield. Nevertheless, she was happier there, where her friends and memories were. Toward the end I don't think there was much difference between the two. Matthew gave a remarkable eulogy, I rediscovered old friends and powerful mid-June allergies, and my brother and I harvested our friends' memories of the woman who raised and influenced us and not the confused, deceptive, tired old person I tried to save.

Two weeks later we were back at the Phoenix airport, escorting Ruth to a plane to Raleigh-Durham this time. Our friend Sandy, who had gone to library school with Ruth, had had enough of North Carolina and found a tech job in Provo. Sandy needed a Thelma to her Louise for the road trip and we spent the night near the airport in Tempe (that's pronounced tem-PEE, not tempeh).

Seven weeks later Ruth couldn't understand why she was sick to her stomach and dizzy all the time. Understand, we'd been trying for the better part of five and a half years to conceive, with medical intervention and no success. Boxer underwear, no hot tubs, mineral supplements, complicated physical positions worthy of the Kama Sutra excepting the 'enjoyable' component, repeated visits to do it with a plastic cup and drive halfway across town...

And in the end it took nothing more than a hotel bed.