These Are The Days

27 years and a few odd months ago I was playing at indoor recess with my friends. We were playing a board game but I can't remember what. I can tell you it was my friend Christa and my friend Kristen (my life is full of people with variations of the Christa name) and the room was loud and the room was full of kids full of energy that they hadn't been able to take outside and run off. My teacher was Mrs. Combs, and her team teaching partner was Mr. Scott. They had a large partition that ran the length of the two rooms which they had rolled back to give us access to both rooms for our play time. Two years later Mr. Scott would bleed out and die during surgery on an ulcer.
But on this day I didn't know that would happen. On this day I was waiting.
I was waiting for something to happen.
And then it did. The intercom in the room beeped - "Mrs. Combs?"
Mrs Combs walked over to the intercom and pressed the button "Yes?"
"Bridgette has a little brother."
And I screamed in joy and my two best friends and I fell to the floor, and the three of us were laughing so hard that we were crying. And I thought that I would never in my life feel so much joy. It was a baby that lived, and my mom was okay, and everything was okay this time. And that is how my brother Matt came into my life.

One year ago today, I was waiting.
I was at work, and I had my hand on my cell phone almost all day. If I was in a meeting I turned it down to vibrate and still kept my hand on my phone. And suddenly, again, something happened. My phone vibrated. I stepped out of a meeting and answered my phone.

And it was my brother Matt.
"It's on like Donkey Kong."

And that's how I found out that my beautiful niece Madison was about to make her entrance into the world.

Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl.
In all of eternity there will never be another you.
Fearlessly be yourself.