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Nestled inside a grocery sack filled with pint-sized cartons of shelf-stable chocolate milk, four containers of banana yogurt and other kid-friendly snacks is a book about being scared that I hope my daughter will never open without me.

I recently shopped for supplies to keep our daughter, Harper, happy and well-fed for at least 24 hours in the event of an emergency that prevents us from reaching her preschool.

My dad recently decided to sell the old family homestead.

The last time I was there was right after the death of my precious grandmother. The house was to be rented, and my job was to clean it before the new tenants arrived. The task proved to be more difficult than I had imagined.

When I was a child, I always knew grandma would be waiting for me on the front porch. As she got older, she would greet me at the door.

At 43, it’s probably time to stop saying, “when” I become middle-aged, and accept that I’ve arrived. I don’t know what the official marker is for middle-aged, but I seriously doubt I’m going to make it to 86. 

My wife, Sarah, and I moved to Oldham County nearly 10 years ago.
Having grown up here, I knew the area quite well.
For Sarah, the outsider, the learning curve was more precipitous.
When needing to get somewhere in Crestwood, La Grange or Goshen, Sarah would often come to me for directions. Those conversations sometimes went like this:
Sarah: “How do you get to (fill in the blank)?”
Me: “Do you remember where (fill in the blank) used to be?”
Sarah:  “No.”