She asked me who I was on a Tuesday in March. Fifty two years, and she looked at me the way you look at a man who has come to read the meter.

I got it wrong that day. I said it louder, like she was hard of hearing, and she got frightened and locked herself in the bathroom, and I stood in the hallway not knowing what to do with my hands.

Getting it wrong does not make you bad at this. I have gotten it wrong a hundred times since that Tuesday. So has every single person I have met who is doing what you are doing.

Some days she knows me. Last month she said my name in her sleep and I sat up in the dark for an hour afterward, just glad.

You are going to have a Tuesday in March. When it comes, I want you to remember that a man you have never met stood in his own hallway feeling exactly what you are feeling, and he was still the right person for the job the next morning. So are you.