Alas, a new beginning. Again.

It's official - I'm 32! Well, actually 32 years and 2 days to be exact. But who's counting.

And, as the candles were blown out, I wished the same thing I've wished for as long as I can remember. It's kind of a generic fairytale of a wish, that I foresee someone saying as they raise a toast to me in my golden years... "To Happily Ever After." While technically I've been alive on this ole earth for 32 years, real living began only 5 years ago.

The hands of time stood still for two long hours on February 7, 2002, as I waited in a mangled car, falling snow coming through the broken windshield, while two extractor teams cut my car from around me. Twisted and pinned for nearly two hours. Wedged between the stearing wheel and the radio. Two hours of panic and terror passed as I prayed to God in desperation that my unborn baby, 7 months inside me and surrounded by bent steel, would miraculously survive this crash. It would be several more hours before an ultrasound confirmed that she was unharmed. Nestled safely in the arms of God, in the womb he placed her in.

As a result, February 7 remains more of a birthday for me than February 6. It's the day I started living on overtime. Freetime given to me directly from God. No one should have walked away from that car. Not me, not Julia. Many times during my recovery, I sat on my front porch in the sunlight, birds scratching about in the grass, and wondered if I had actually died in the wreck. Was this Heaven? No. This is real life. And as that reality sinks in, the question inevitably comes... why did I survive? What is my purpose for being here? Surely she has grand purpose on this earth, and I as her Mother am responsible to see that she thrives.

This year, as the double birthdays approached (Feb 6 & 7) I found myself looking down at my little angel in a hospital bed. Wracked with fever and pneumonia, blood in her stools, and no diagnosis - the terror rises up again. Am I taking good care of her? Can I protect her or not? Her life was given to me, almost taken before I met her, and daily I realize that our entire existance is fragile. And blessed.

As I move past this date on the calendar this year I pause, as always, to appreciate the blessings I have been given. To methodically count them, so as not to risk loosing them due to complaicency. I continue to search for the greater understanding of my purpose, her purpose, our footprint on humanity. And, I breathe a sigh of relief as I date this entry: February 8.