Season of loneliness

I am about to embark on a season of loneliness that may only be rivaled by that experienced by my brother Boyd, lo, some years ago. Bereft of human companionship, he wasted away in my parents sprawling rambler during a cold and bitter winter. No one and nothing, it seemed, could console him in his isolation.

It was a hard thing to watch (or at least hear about after the fact since I was, at the time, completely unaware of his solitary situation).

But as I said, I will soon face the same grim fate. My wife and child will journey to a golden land of mirth and revelry, while I languish in a brackish pool of my own self-pity. True, they will only be gone for 10 days, but what long, trying days they will be without the gentle touch of my woman's hand and the heartening warmth of my baby's smile.