Posted by Leslie on July 20, 19100 at 06:47:03:
I got an invitation to a sweet sixteen party today. It is a lovely invitation. It has a picture of the very beautiful birthday girl on
the front and on the inside, there was a wonderful poem. The first line was "Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone
now."
Time Flies.
I got married exactly one week before my twenty-sixth birthday. I started trying to get pregnant soon after. I just turned thirty
not too long ago. Infertility has stolen half of my twenties. Four years..."gone now." It has been four springs of me planting
flowers and imagining where, in my garden, would be a nice place to take pictures of my baby next year. It has been four
summers where I have thought, maybe next summer I will take my baby to my favorite beach and push a stroller along the
boardwalk. Soon, it will be 4 holiday seasons where I will think, maybe next year I will send out holiday cards with pictures
of my baby or go shopping for my baby or just "whatever" with MY baby.
Last New Years seems like yesterday. At midnight, I remember sobbing and thinking how horrible 1999 was for me. I
thought that God would not let 2000 be this bad for me. He couldn't be that cruel. He wouldn't punish me like that. Half of
2000 is gone. When is "next year" coming?
Last night, I was doing some housework. As I was cleaning my livingroom, I caught a glance of the pictures that I have hung
on one wall. I have snapshots of our wedding, of my husband's family, of my family, and some blank spots that I have saving
for something special. The pictures that struck me the most were the pictures of my husband and I with other people's
children. There is a picture of me with my God daughter who is now 6 months and a picture of my husband outside playing
with his cousin's baby. I think, "God has made a terrible mistake." "He has us confused with some other people." "This
wasn't supposed to happen to us." "This was supposed to happen to the woman who threw her baby off of a bridge because
she couldn't find a babysitter." "This was supposed to happen to the people who beat their child to death." "This was
supposed to happen to someone like that, not us." Maybe if I point that out to him, next year will come.