Miss Mary's Birthday

This is the first year of many, many past when Miss Mary is not at home on Sheridan for her birthday and this cannot help but make me a bit sad. Her visits this year to our house - car bouncing a little too fast down the street and stopping suddenly enough in our drive to leave her dog, Muffin, wedged somewhere under the dash - have become more and more rare. Her stamina weakens as we watch and  sometimes she seems very confused.  Her lenghty unplanned visits to various hospitals for assessment leave me hoping the medical staff in her life find a way to give her a few more years at home to be her fiesty and sometimes scary self. I'm getting less done lately with my fingers crossed, but I think it is a worthy effort...