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In my case, life just got turned upside down last year. I lost my husband of 40 some years to cancer. It was sudden and really took me and the family by total surprise. Dale hadn't been feeling well and was seeing doctors but it took a while for them to figure out what was wrong with him. When they did figure out that he had lung cancer, he only had about a month left, even though they thought he would have more time than he did.

I know that many of you have gone through this same ordeal with friends or family members. It's truly heart breaking, and it takes a long time for life to get back to some sort of new normal. That's where I am now. Getting back to normal, figuring out how to live as a widow, with two bereft cats and a small family, who are all still in shock as well.

But we adjust and then turn to familiar pastimes and old friends, go out to the movies, find new restaurants to call our own, move to a different residence, clear out the clutter of a lifetime, and move on.

So it's with pleasure that I return once again to publishing Clever. There were lots of emails waiting my attention, and of course, all those pesky technical issues that accompany this business. So it was more time-consuming than it usually is to produce this issue. But I loved working with this material. As you will see, there are lots of laughs, some intrigue, some nostalgia -- the usual stuff.

Many thanks to everybody who patiently waited around for something to happen! I promise that the next issue will arrive in a more timely manner. As I've said in the past, we'll continue publishing until there are no more submissions. Until then, thanks for thinking of us.

Dianne (aka The Phantom)

To contact the editor, email: editor@clevermag.com