I remember years ago (19 years ago, to be exact) when I was pregnant with my son. All of a sudden it seemed like everywhere I looked, anywhere I went, I saw a pregnant woman. My husband noticed it, too, and we joked about it being an epidemic. There wasn't a baby boom in 1997, so why did we suddenly notice so many pregnant women?

Last fall when Dad was ill, and his hospital stay evolved into a rehab stay, which evolved into assisted living, I suddenly heard of more and more people going through similar circumstances.

And now, I keep stumbling into people who have recently lost a parent.

It's interesting how sometimes we don't notice certain elements of the world until they apply to us, isn't it?