Nine years ago today,

Death nearly invaded our bodies, Ezra and I. I saw stars. He nearly didn't see the light of day. Thanks to some quick activity and thinking of the medical people, we are both here to celebrate nine years of rebirth. It was like a saga. Pitosin, blacking out and then waking up with warm blankets over my freezing body. Questions, where is the baby? Where am I? Why aren't they bringing him? They must be notifying next of kin? Was the answer my fertile mind came up with. I am next of kin. Notify me. Where is he? I had just been to 2 funerals in a row and the one that I averted was my own and my baby's. Oh my, here he is. What a bright boy, to have smiled upon the first entrance with us. He must have had some of the same questions in his mind. He recognized us in spite of the trauma, the drugs of gas going through the bloodstream and the hullaballoo of the nursery. I waited my whole life to meet you, I tell the squirt. Nine is not much of a squirt anymore. He wants so much and he is in personality, the most like Ben of the bunch. I ran out in the rain, this morning to get the cupcakes for the class. I gave him a birthday kiss. His list of wants is through the roof. "Will it be a presentless birthday this year?" Some years it has been. I don't think so, I reply. We are grateful to have another year to reminisce of the funerals that led up to the birth that was almost a complete catastrophe. The boy who is the wonderful rounding out of our quiver. Matching couplets. And one in heaven.

Thank Heaven!

The Peace of Euclid!

Everytime I celebrate my beloved sister's birthday, I remember the love that we have. This love was nurtured through many vehicles. The pain and the exultation of the drama that was the love of little sisters. We had everybody wishing for a sisterhood like ours. I can't believe that I was 4 years old when she was born. I thought of her as a tiny baby and I thought that I was a grown person. My favorite, violent memory{and there are many} was a day that I came to Grandma Ruth's house and I saw my sweet baby sister and bent over to catch her as I had done so many times before. She came running, she was 3 or 4 and I was 7 or 8. I felt like I was very much older than her. I squatted to catch my adoring and running sister, like they do in the movies. Her fist hit me in the chest and she had run from the top of Grams steps and she knocked me to the ground with a full heavy blow of her body. She didn't even stop to see if I lived through the ordeal. She ran and hid. If it weren't for the love of math,{in God's mercy} that gave us something else to think about, other than our continuous conflicts we would have killed eachother. I know, if I had found her, after that, I would have pounded her to bits. I didn't even remember, once I had finished my math homework. The things that distract us enough not to kill eachother can be manifold. I like to thank Euclid as an aid to beat our swords to plowshears. It was true in our house, for sure. We lived to be 46 and 50 and haven't killed eachother yet. In fact, we learned to love eachother, from a distance. :)