Until last spring, my dining room table was a slender oak relic I found at a garage sale for fifty dollars. We had refinished it along with its extra leaf and replaced the sliding mechanism underneath.

I am a list-maker. I have lists for most everything in life—a list of addresses, a list of birthdays and anniversaries, a list of shows to watch on Netflix.

It was many years ago in September. Bill and I had just finished building a home in central Minnesota and were about three-and-a-half months from the birth of our first daughter. It was a time for dreaming,