The day started with my playing "Birthday" and dancing with Lauren. Tommy joined in too! They're 18 today, and it's been a very long day of very mixed and conflicted emotions. I talked Lauren out of walking to school, and instead, she, I, and Tommy went to LG Cafe for breakfast. Doing so was my nod to their mom, as LG Cafe is a place of many milestone celebrations, including birthdays, and it's relatively sacred ground to me. After some morning meetings, Tommy came with me to SRC, where I routinely meet with Dr. Silva on Thursdays. Tommy participated this time around, and I felt good about the fact that he has a voice and the opportunity to hear and be heard. Linda has reduced her eating and is becoming less and less responsive. He said that he thought she might go quickly, and without giving predictions, we understood that to mean weeks. I returned home for more work meetings, picked up Lauren from the Noke's home while avoiding getting into any deep discussions as it's just not something I'm comfortable with right now, grabbed Tommy from Pano, and headed back to SRc for a 2nd visit. We were told '2 people only,' but they gave us an exception. We stayed for a while; each of them spent time with her, expressing gratitude for their 18yrs of life. Her condition has worsened, and it's painful to feel like I have played any role in sedating her to this point, but as the dr said this AM and as my notes from just two weeks ago prove out, the tumor is likely a key factor, not the medications. But it's still grueling and painful to second guess if we're making it better or not. Jen and I then took them to dinner, at their request, at Black Angus. It felt weird because we wanted to respect that they typically spent with their mom, not her. But they both insisted it was ok, and so we went, and all went well. Still, as Tommy said at one point, "This has been a fucked up year". Amen.