Gift of Hope

My birthday was yesterday. 

I have never been one for birthdays. 

I love to celebrate others but for me, I never make a big hoopla. I don't dislike them, don't hold any negative stress over them, I just don't focus on my own very much. 

One year I even forgot it until it was mentioned to me. 

I am fortunate to have so many good friends who "gently" nudge me to celebrate anyway.

I know that makes me a special kind of special. 

I am quite awful at some dates, far too on point with others. 

One year ago today is the day I found out I was carrying Daisy. I realized it the day before - the evening of my birthday actually. Knowing how slim my chances were that it would make it to viable pregnancy, I waited until the next day to take the test. If I lost that child, if he or she would not make it to my arms, I didn't want my birthday to be the day I had found out. Morbid thinking, I know, but when you go through the roller coaster that is our roller coaster ... I didn't want yesterday to be that day. So I waited.

That positive result was and remains one of the most precious gifts I have ever received. 

Even with the loss that followed. 

A daisy that I didn't plant bloomed in my garden today. 

Something that I thought was a weed when it first started making its way out of the pine straw earlier this month, that I nearly ripped out of the ground to throw away, bloomed this day - the day she became a "possible".

One year ago today, for the first time in far too many, came the gift of hope.