I was about to click the OK button when the power went out on Thursday. The screen flickered gently as the power surged, and a collective gasp went up across the floor as hours of work disappeared into what would become the great blackout of 2003.

There was nothing left to do but go home.

After an hour or so, two other colleagues and I began the trek from Manhattan to Queens, each of us wary of the long walk ahead and anxious to get to our destinations before darkness fell over the city. We left work and headed towards the base of the 59th Street Bridge, which would take us up over the East River and into Queens. From there, we would each make our own way home.

As we neared the bridge, we looked around and stared in wonder at what appeared to be all of Manhattan converging from the streets around us. We joined the throngs of sweaty bodies at the bottleneck at the lower roadway, watching in silence as the masses filtered in eerie calm through the pedestrian walkways and in between the slow-moving traffic.

"This reminds me too much of Nine Eleven," my colleague said. "I did this same walk over the bridge then, and I hoped I'd never have to do it again." He looked at me. "Somehow I feel I'll have to do it still again, once more in my lifetime."

An hour or so later, we emerged on the other side of the bridge. I looked up at the tracks of the elevated trains and a stranded Number 7 lay still halfway around the bend, its carriages empty except for a single conductor sitting in an open doorway, his feet dangling high above us. I looked back at the bridge and its crowd of people, a sea of weary faces bobbing up and down, back and forth as they made their way over the river. We were all aware that our trips had only just begun. My colleagues and I shook hands. "Good luck getting home," we said, and we headed our separate ways.

I began speedwalking, trying to ignore the questionable neighbourhoods around me and all too aware that I was in a race against the setting sun, which had begun to cast a warm amber glow over the city.

I had brought three bottles of water for my trek home, one for each of the estimated three hours of powerwalking I needed. I had also brought with me the remnants of my lunch: half of a grilled chicken sandwich and the last bits of a protein sports bar. Lucky thing too: soon enough I was hungry and most everything around had closed up shop. I fished the half-eaten sandwich out of my bag and munched on it, nervously eyeing my watch and trying to ignore the humidity and oppressive heat around me.

It was around 44th and Northern that I saw the ice cream truck. I wouldn't have noticed it but for the lines of exhausted and sweat-drenched people waiting patiently for their frozen treats. "I'll forgive myself," I thought. "Just this once." I joined the lines and in a few minutes had wolfed down two of the truck's offerings.

Dinner and dessert and a nice stroll home.

I was about twenty minutes away from my destination when Greg swooped down and rescued me. He had left Philadelphia about the same time I had started walking, and somehow cellphone service managed to work just long enough for us to let the other know where we were. I piled into the car and breathed the cold air, my feet red and throbbing from the new shoes I was wearing. What a way to break them in, these new shoes.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. We drove to my mother's apartment where we had decided to spend the night. As Greg snoozed on the sofa, my mother and I sat on her tiny balcony, watching the brightly lit airplanes swoop overhead over the now darkened city. It was a bizarre sight indeed. Soon enough, we headed to the safety of our beds, thankful that we had all made it safely home and exhausted from the excitement of the day. We had survived the great blackout of 2003.

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Have you ever wondered what they mean when they talk about a wistful sigh?

I spent a quiet weekend with my mom, talking and laughing about ancient things and of old memories of years gone by. "Here, I want to show you your baby picture," she said. And she ran off to fetch the picture albums.

We spent the better part of Sunday morning flipping through old photographs in her sunny apartment, me asking who was who and how they were related to us. "There, a picture of your aunt Annie in England. There, a picture of your cousin in New Zealand, and one of her sister in China. There, a picture of my brother. He's still in Hong Kong, you know, my brother. Look, there's a picture of Daddy."

They were old photographs, some black and white, some yellowed with age, some tattered around the edges after decades of being passed around and stuffed in boxes. I asked about our relatives in this picture, our family in that picture. Who are these people, Mummy?

She smiled.

"He's dead, you know," she said, pointing to a picture of a Chinese man standing next to me. I squinted and looked at the photo. It was taken in the summer of 1986, the year my father took my brother and me to China to show us where they had spent their childhoods. "He died about two years after Daddy."

She pointed out a few other people in other pictures. "He's dead, too. And him, he's dead. And she's dead, too."

I tried to keep the conversation light, laughing gently and asking as delicately as I could questions about everyone and everything. After a bit, she looked up from the photos.

"Ah," she said. She closed the book and glanced up at me, looking suddenly tired. "Ah," she repeated, "when it's your time to go, it's your time to go." She looked up to the ceiling and let out a wistful sigh.

I always knew it in theory, but I never really understood it until that moment. I understand now. I understand now exactly what they mean, what they mean when they talk about a wistful sigh.

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I brought my mom home from the hospital today. As we were walking to the car from the hospital lobby, a gust of wind tugged at the silver helium balloon that Victor and Chris gave her yesterday and it escaped its ribbon leash, bobbing wildly as it flew off into the late afternoon skies. My mother laughed and waved goodbye.

She's going to be fine.

Thanks so much for your wonderful e-mails, phone calls, and good wishes. You all made a tremendous difference, you really did. Thanks again, for everything.

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It's been confirmed. My mom had a heart attack.

Why does that sound so dirty? My mom had a heart attack. I cringe every time I hear myself say it. Heartattack, heartattack, heartattack. I say it as one word over and over in my mind, slurring as quickly as I can. If I disguise it, perhaps it will lessen the gravity of the situation. Hardatak. That's it. My mom had a hardatak.

It's a strange feeling, telling people that my mom had a heart attack. Even as I type this now, I get chills. My mom had a heart attack?

It's as though saying it would reinforce the fact that it happened. That somehow it makes it truer than not, that somehow it makes some statement of confirmtion that no, I really didn't dream it all.

My mom had a hardatak.

I called the guys at work to tell them my mom wasn't feeling too well. "She's in the hospital," I said.

"Oh, is she okay?"

"Yeah, hardatak."

I e-mailed my boss to let him know I'd be in and out of the office. "My mom had a heart attack," I wrote.

Right now, even as I type this. Chills. I have to get it out of my system.

It happened. Deal with it, dammit.

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