I Celebrate but I Remember

On this day, this day of all days, as Dr. Seuss would say, I celebrate my beautiful girl. I remember her birth and I smile. But I think of others far away and I remember their pain. I don't know them, but I know their loss and I mourn for them.

Natalie was born at 9:30 a.m. on 7/7/2005. We got to the hospital, bright and early, eager to meet our little girl. With all of the paperwork filled out and my IV finally, agonizingly placed, we were ready to go and spent the final minutes flipping channels while we waited for my OB to arrive.

Morning TV is the worst. As Tom surfed, it was crap, crap, and more crap.

But wait...what's this?

Bombings? In London? In the subway?

My first thought, stupid because I couldn't even process what I was seeing was, "It's not the subway there. Don't they call it the tube?"

And then I thought, "Bright and early on a beautiful morning. Just like 9/11."

And when it sunk in, when I heard that lives were lost and I looked across the room at my mother, all I could think was, "Oh no. No, no, no. Those poor families. Now they are just like us."

And I know she was thinking the same thing. She was remembering the phone call. And the disbelief. And the surge of grief that is so powerful it's visceral. And the planning and the burying and the long days that follow on and on and on.

So I didn't keep the front page of the newspaper from the day Natalie was born. I don't like her birth being associated with the deaths of those unfortunate souls. I don't want to think of the sorrow their families will carry forever.

But I do. On this day, when the celebrating is over and the birthday girl is tucked safely in her bed, I think of those people across the ocean for whom this day is a terrible anniversary of loss and rage and sorrow. I think of them and I hope time is helping them heal as much as they can. I hope they are finding more good days than bad. I hope their memories bring more comfort than pain. And most of all, I hope that they found something wonderful to help them heal their broken hearts like I did on 7/7.