It’s hard to explain exactly what 13 years feels like. You know how it is getting older: the days blur into weeks, and then into months, and finally into years. It feels so cliche to say, “time goes by so fast.” And yet it does, and it is. If someone had told me two, five or even 15 years ago that I would be parentless by the age of 43, I probably would have replied with a a certain amount of hubris, “no way!” Even though I’ve always known life to be inherently