As the years tick off, we are reminded that we do move on, that even when the world can seem to have been frozen into one terrifying moment, life ignores our pain and our sorrow and ploughs forward with a singular determination.
Kali was born one year ago today. She was due to be born one year ago yesterday. I'm not a superstitious person. I was neither phased nor upset when my OB/GYN told me her due date. It only made me sad that my daughters would have to grow up in a world where an otherwise innocuous date will always evoke feelings of ... FEAR ... HATRED ... PAIN ... SADDNESS.
Elizabeth at Motherhood is not for Wimps has said it all for me. Thank you, Elizabeth, for expressing in concrete words what we all, as women, as mothers, as people long for.
My youngest daughter was born in Tokyo, and her due date was August 6th, which, in Japan happens to be the day the U.S. bombed Hiroshima. I prayed that she wouldn't be born on her due day, and I prayed that she wouldn't be born on August 9th, the day Nagasaki was nuked. She was born on the 7th, and I was so grateful. Ironically, this was also the day her paternal grandmother died, and it is my stepmother's birthday. My father-in-law told us that he would now be able to celebrate a day that had always had sad connotations for him. I thought she did very well managing her birth on such an auspicious date.
Posted by: Mary Witzl | September 12, 2007 at 03:42 PM