My baby turns 3 tomorrow, and how can I say this without sounding repetitive....


I can NOT believe how lucky I am to be here to see it.
I know I have said this about things that have already happened; Thanksgiving, Christmas, other birthdays, including my 47th...but it is no less appropriate, and no less a powerful feeling for me.


I am coming up on 1 year out, so, that means that I am still experiencing things "for the first time".
I am still in that place where I am experiencing things newly after my heart attack.


Next year, I will see my kids turn ANOTHER year older, I will TURN a year older, I will open another Christmas present, see another soccer game....but this year, I am still just experiencing these things as a newly minted "survivor". I will never experience things with that odd sense of finality again (if all goes well anyway).


I'll always have that extra bit of gratitude for being given the opportunity to experience EVERY day I have left, but firsts are always more special to us as humans; and I have had a whole year of nothing BUT firsts.


The next time I feel so honored to be given a second chance will be at some extra special occasion, a wedding, or a graduation. the kinds of things that only happen once in a lifetime anyhow. Those days will be extra special to me knowing what might have been. But birthdays, holidays and other annual things will likely become more "normal" as the years go on.


The year is coming to an end, and so is this iteration of this blog. That is a strange feeling for me. I am not sure what to do as the year concludes, but then again, I guess that will be just another "first" for me, won't it?


Good night & God bless.