Dates

Today is a pretty horrible date for a friend of mine, Brina. It's the day her little boy Jacob was born and died in 2001. And then her baby girl Emme was born shortly thereafter, and died after living only two weeks. The sad thing is? I don't even know the day of her birth - only the day of her death.

That got me thinking about all the dates in our lives that we hold close to our hearts. All the anniversaries of joys and also sorrows that no one knows but us. Dates like our first kiss, our divorced parents' wedding anniversary, the day you miscarried, the day we met our husbands, our graduation days, or the death of a loved one.

Happy days: December 23, June 17, March 28, September 7, September 9, September 18, October 16, October 12, January 30, January 23, July 24.

Sad days: October 26, September 7, February 24, May 9, November 9.

And not to mention all the ones in between.

There are silent memorials we build in our hearts to those we love, those we miss, and those things of which we can't let go. Have you told anyone about your dates? Have you let anyone in to mark the milestone with you? And what have you learned on those days? Do you believe that suffering can teach compassion? Or can nothing good come from it?

"There's two dates in time that they'll carve on your stone and everyone knows what they mean./What's more important is the time that is known in that little dash there in between." (Garth Brooks, "Pushing Up Daisies")

EDIT: Here's a link to Brina's website, where you can read the story.