Each day is moving forward. I am caught up in a flurry of motherly activity: getting the kids off to school, cleaning the house while they're gone, blogging (hm...), picking them up from school again, feeding them, bathing them, telling them to put their pants back on and wash their hands and sit down and finish their food and stop jumping off the sofa and stop spraying me with the garden hose and stop trying to get the cat to wear a cup on his head and stop hitting each other with sticks (sorry, "light sabers"), and putting them to bed. I don't notice it as I am caught up in all these activities. I don't notice it until I have time to pause, or until the phone rings. I am waiting: waiting to hear that one life has begun, waiting to hear that another has ended.

My brother has stopped calling because he is tired of my overeager hellos and the way I pause, breathless and waiting after each one. He hears the unspoken questions in the silence: "Is Leigh in labor yet? Is the baby here yet?" And the answer has been the same, as the due date came and went, "No, not yet." But I know my little niece or nephew is coming soon, any day now, and some part of my brain remains tense with anticipated excitement.

And I am waiting for another call I know must come, telling us my father-in-law is struggling no more to draw breath into lungs made weak and ineffective by cancer. When my husband calls from work, I listen to his voice, trying to determine if it sounds more tired and sad than it usually does these days, trying to gauge from his hello whether or not someone has called him at work with the news, and whether or not he is now calling to tell me. The answer has been the same each time, "No news yet." But I know that death is approaching, any day now, and some part of my brain remains tense with anticipated dread.

Each day I am breathing, yet I'm holding my breath...