First, as always, the children. We delivered Rosie to college in Ohio, a road trip that began Friday night, driving as long as we could stay awake.

This is a tough one: our baby grows up. She has her own fears about this new stage. I fear that I haven't prepared her, haven't taught her enough. She is so trusting of the world: will it hurt her? Will she remember her table manners without her mother shooting her that piercing look that will make those elbows disappear from the table? She's read so much more than I, surely she'll have picked up on a few things I've neglected. And I will miss her horribly.

Nonetheless, we must proceed. The book on tape we've selected is captivating: Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. It's the story of Louis Zamperini, a running marvel in the 1930s, WWII bomb crash survivor on a raft in the Pacific for 45 days, only to be captured by the Japanese and tortured for a year and a half. We kept driving just to hear the next chapter.