thinking on new life w/o X

[sleeper]

AJ,

I think you're being coy...but just in case... When people are under pressure, what they are made of comes out
.
"If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you then you shall be a man, my son." My Mother (I think she paraphrased Rudyard Kipling)

My mother (her 89th birthday was yesterday) must have said that to me a thousand
times when I was young.

She would also say, "You have broad shoulders, you can handle it" anytime ANY difficulty came my way.

Long ago I recognized the truth in her version of Kipling's quote.

And grew to resent the admonition of her own.