Replies to make, but first this: Today's the first surgery since Mom died.

I have comments to reply to here - you sweet people left some and I didn't come back to answer them. Each time I did, I started to cry. Such is grief: just when you think it's wandered off, it sneaks up behind you and says, "Booga-Booga!!"

I've had eleven of these cysts removed from my eyelids since I was in my 20's. We had a kind of ritual, Mom and I -- she would tell me not to drive myself home and I always would. And she always looked like I was never coming back, when I left the house to go to the hospital. Today I'm leaving the house without that and it hurts so bad.

More than the eye will.

So thank you all for wishing me well - it means more than I can express.