I've long held dear to my heart the play on words "life sentence." Specifically, I say that "I'm serving a life sentence. Like every sentence, mine will end with some sort of punctuation. It can be a question mark, an exclamation point, a period, or an ellipsis."

(By the by, I didn't originate this one. A certain Mr. Eneix did, and if you're reading, I'm very grateful for all the wisdom with which you've gifted me.)

I want mine to end with a period. I want to complete a thought, then, having completed it, move on. I need not have it end with some overstated, overwrought 'bang!' as geeks sometimes call the exclamation point. I can even bear with it ending with a question, having formed a complete query and to leave it to my survivors to ponder, perhaps to answer.

I don't want it to end in an ellipsis. I don't want it to end incomplete, leaving those left to deal with my remains to wonder what I meant. Or what I was thinking...

I want to simply end with a point. A point to my life. That's all.

[Disclaimer: I am no closer to death than I was when I started this journal. I may be more aware of how close I am (five stents around one's heart does drive that point home) but I have no news along that line at all, especially no bad news.

These musings brought to you by my visit to my mom's nursing home and how hopeless it feels. How the lives therein are running out of space on their writing paper, running out of ink in their pens.

How said it all is.]