I'LL BE TRAVELING back to southern Virginia this weekend, so you won't hear from me again until Monday...or Tuesday....or whenever I actually get around to it. I'll be sleeping Saturday night in my old room, in my childhood home beside the Warwick River. One year and ten days ago I was there to lay my mother to rest, and two years and ten days ago I was there to bid my father a final farewell. This time I'll be at the funeral service of my great-aunt Emily. She was my mother's aunt and also her very dear friend.

It will be a time of many remembrances, a very real reminder of the passage of time.

In this photo of the pier (taken circa 1993) are my three children and my mother. There is a slight ache in my heart as I look at it. However, time moves ever forward....never back. That is the way of the dimension we call time....a mysterious dimension, as who can even fathom existence without it?

I've read enough about quantum physics and string theory, however, to truly ponder the possibility of time travel. I don't think I'd want to be around for its discovery... But hey, wouldn't we all eventually find out if it were to happen? The future would come back to us! Hmm, the thought is starting to give me the tiniest bit of a creepy feeling. Yes, I'm sure I prefer to live in sequential time, even though it means parting with those I love.

......