Monday, November 16, 2015

Birthday girl

Saturday night, dh & I walked into a local pizza restaurant for dinner. It was early (late afternoon) & there was a birthday party going on -- a table full of giggling pre-teen girls and pink & purple balloons.

That's when it hit me.

Saturday (Nov. 14th) was my original due date in 1998. In other words, it might have been, could have been, should have been, Katie's birthday. Her 17th birthday. It was written in my datebook, but I hadn't really thought about it all day, until I saw the balloons & heard the giggles. (Bad Mommy!!)

After the waitress took our order, I told dh. He looked sad, & we held hands across the table as the girls sang "happy birthday" to the birthday girl on the other side of the room.

It was a weird feeling. Ten or 15 years ago, I probably would have been devastated -- both by my forgetting & by being confronted with a little girl's birthday party on this day of all days.

But I just felt sad, and a bit wistful, thinking of everything we've missed out on these past 17 years, and how different things might have been.

10 comments:

  1. Hugs. Sad and wistful - perfectly understandable.

    And you're not a Bad Mommy at all. Katie is with you every day. The actual dates mean little next to that.

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  2. Hugs to you. Wishing it were different and that she were here, where she belongs.

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  3. Many hugs and much love Loribeth. Echo Mali: you're not a bad mommy. You honor Katie everyday. Even in that moment at the restaurant.

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  4. Thinking of you. Grief never really disappears entirely, does it? It just morphs into something new with the passage of time. Hugs!

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  5. Sending much love and light to you and to Katie.

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  6. I am so thankful that eventually it becomes a moderately sad thing instead of breathtaking gasping pain. It makes it a bit easier.

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  7. Aww. Holding you close in my thoughts.

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  8. Happy Birthday to Katie.

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  9. Oh, the heart cringing space between our parallel universes......

    Happy birthday, sweet Katie.

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