Troy, I need my book back

I am afraid of losing my parents. When I see movies where characters die and other grieve, when I read books about loss, when I dream terrible dreams. I was coming down the stairs the other day and had an image of my father staggering over, falling and felt tears prick in my eyes. I don't understand this morbidity, this fear that has come upon me in the past few years. I mourn the possibility of loss. I am sure we can point to some origin - when my father's best friend had a heart attack, when my uncle had his heart attack, when my father told me he felt old and meant it, when my parents sent me instructions about their trust, their will, my inheritance. That was an amazing day. Dear Alison, I hope you are well, we drew up our will today and made plans for our cremation, love Mom. (I hardly paraphrase). I think somehow I am going through empty nest syndrome, despite being the one who left. The problem is I never know when I'm going back or for how long. This is the choice I made, in the next few years my precious time away from school will be aimed squarely at Chicago and while I do not regret it I rue the necessity of it and the outcome - it is not ideal. Utopia would be school in the west where I can have both at once. I guess we're back to a cake equation and somehow we've run out of flour.