An Anniversary

Yesterday almost went by without my noticing the date. It is an important date in our story. It is the date on which my water broke two years ago.

As the day began, I went about my business just as I did then. I had no idea what day it was or why it was significant, just like I had no idea two years prior that my life was about to change. Then, it snuck up on me. While sitting at the computer, I moved the mouse to the bottom corner of my screen, and there it was -- December 12, the day I had been sitting on the floor of my living room, wrapping a present when another feeling snuck up on me.

An anniversay is something to celebrate or commemorate. I'm not exactly sure which I should have done on this occasion because it is one that symbolizes a beginning and an end. In it is intertwined both love and loss. No, I did not lose my baby, but there is a part of me that was lost that day, the part that believed I and my baby were safe. I will probably never regain that part of me. I'm not sure that I want to, though, because while I did lose something that day, I gained something else, something I did not truly appreciate until faced with a crisis -- the love and compassion of others manifested in the thoughts, prayers, and visits of people from all different parts of my life. It was on December 12 that I realized the truth in one of my favorite quotes: "No man is an island."

December 12 began a learning experience unlike any other in my life, one that taught me both the fear of the unknown and how to overcome it. December 12 is not the day that Buzzy was born; however, something was born in me that day, something that I am still trying to understand two years later.