Today I drove over to pick up Bill to go for coffee. We have met for coffee each week for months. Nothing new about that. What changed was my picking him up.

Before, he would drive to Dean & Deluca to meet me for coffee and talk about the old neighborhood. That was before Labor Day. Before his children took his driver's license and his car away. Before they told him Alzheimer's had changed him.

A few years ago, Bill owned a business that manufactured automated equipment. I remember hearing him brag about having the Ford plant as a customer.

"Those guys love our stuff," he would say. "We build better equipment than our competition."

He sold that business for seven figures and the new owner paid in cash. The money was for him and his wife to enjoy life, someday. When he retired, he bought a BMW to reward himself. That car was a special milestone for him.

This morning we ordered two Danish and got our coffee. A bicycle club had taken over the dining area. I found a table outside in the sunshine, away from the crowd. We watched the patrons come and go. Bill doesn't talk much.

I noticed that a convertible like Bill's was parked by the door. It had a personal license plate that read, "Someday."

"Bill, what did they do with your car?" I asked. His expression didn't change.

"I don't know." He winced as he sipped his hot coffee. "It's just gone."

I pointed out the "Someday" on the license plate. Bill stared blankly.

I thought about the word "someday," implying wishing and waiting. I remembered my mother-in-law looking up to the stars and saying, "Someday Joe and I will be out of debt." My father saying, "Someday I'm taking your mother to Hawaii." My sister-in-law, who has lived in the same house 47 years, saying, "Someday I'm going to sell this place and move to a bigger one."

Waiting for someday is different from waiting for Christmas or your birthday. Holidays and birthdays come with regularity throughout our lives, no matter what. Someday does not. It has no respect for our planning, or our intentions, and it is not sympathetic to health changes, either. None of my relatives, or Bill, reached their someday; it was always in front of them.
Bill finished his coffee but hardly touched his Danish.

"You know what, Bill?" I said. "Someday I'll write a book, travel to see my sister in the Queen Charlotte Islands, and spend more time with friends."

I looked over at Bill. He was watching sparrows picking at the crumbs.