A photo of a missing veteran with dementia popped up on my Facebook news feed today, posted in hope that someone might have seen the man and could help him find his way home.

I pray he is safe and has already been reunited with his loved ones. Imagine their horror to find him missing.

I am grateful that this never happened to us. Joe was simply too debilitated from Parkinson’s disease to wander off and get lost. It was also the result of a difficult but deliberate choice.

The regimen of 12 pills a day that had helped keep Joe limber and able to walk for a number of years was turning his mind to mush. After he failed a driving test — twice! — and couldn’t remember how to fasten his seatbelt during a lesson, we demanded a cognitive evaluation. The tests determined he had moderate to severe dementia.

The neurologist warned us never to leave him unattended. He also told us to wean Joe off his pills ASAP. The medicine that had helped him get around was no good for someone with dementia, he said. After a difficult withdrawal, we tried several replacements and even brain surgery, but nothing did as much to improve Joe’s mobility as the verboten medication.

Finally, the neurologist said we could treat Joe’s movement at the expense of his cognition — or we could keep his mind sharper at the expense of his mobility. We couldn’t do both. It was our choice.

We chose mind over mobility.

Joe would never be able to wander away. And for a while longer, he would be able to share his worries, his joys and his offbeat sense of humor. He would also be able to understand when we told him we were only trying to keep him safe because we loved him very much.

And that was the best prescription of all.

Today is the second Monday of my retirement, and I’ve got to say, so far it is not what I expected.

Before my last day on the job, I made ambitious plans, signing up for five classes at the community college, packing my calendar with a bunch of long-postponed appointments and vowing to give every closet at Casa Carole a thorough going over.

I would walk a mile in the morning, a mile at midday and a mile in the evening. The 7 pounds that have taken up residence on my hips and thighs would melt away, and I would return triumphant to the “skinny” side of my clean, reorganized closet.

That was the plan anyway.

So far, I’ve taken one walk. The closets remain untouched and impenetrable.

Appointments are being kept, but the night classes have now been spread out over a few months instead of a few weeks and will be much closer to home. The first one required an hour-long commute during evening rush and an even longer trip home in the dark of night. By day four, I was so wiped out from hurrying around that I napped twice — and then slept all night too.

I feel like a hyperactive hamster hurled, suddenly, off its ever-spinning treadwheel — off kilter and a little confused. The abrupt absence of daily deadlines and demands is dazzling.

No stories to edit. No husband waiting at the nursing home, eager but impatient for my visit. No rush to wash, dry, fold, dust, scrub or even cook. No need to bookend a day or week at the office with more work at home.

Today, it dawned on me that I’m not shackled to anybody’s schedule now. For the first time in my adult life, I can do pretty much what I want, when I want. And what I want right now is a taco salad, a glass of wine and a good book.

Oh, and a clear calendar.

I’ll worry about filling it one of these days, when I get a mind to.

This is my first Mother’s Day without Joe — another milestone in the first year after his death.

I made it through Valentine’s Day, his birthday and our wedding anniversary,  but Mother’s Day is different. I’m not going to go on and on about how happy Joe and I were when we became new parents and how proud our son made us all these years — though it’s all true.

Actually, Mother’s Day calls to mind something I hadn’t thought about in quite a while. Like many husbands, Joe called me “Mom” or, in speaking with our son, “Our Mom.” No matter how many times I reminded him that I was not his mother, it persisted throughout our lives together.

Was his gentle needling Joe’s way of feeling more youthful? Or perhaps making a bride nine years his junior feel “old, old, old,” as I teased in response?

Maybe a little of both, I think.

Either way, the banter was sweet and familiar. I miss it today.