Wordjanitor Strikes Again

I was sitting in this same spot almost exactly two years ago. (Actually, I think I was in the room next door, but what are 15 feet between friends?) I’d just arrived in Namibia for the first time. On that day, I had some idea of what the next two weeks would bring. Today I have a better idea, but I’m well aware that much changes along the way. Volunteering is often a good exercise in flexibility. In 2012, a friend gave me an opportunity that would change my life. He invited me on a medical mission. I’d already been managing the group's blog and social media for a few years. But the chance to actually travel with the team was something I’d hadn’t expected. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly adventurous, but I knew I had to go. And so, I found myself in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta with the International Extremity Project . Not only did my first trip provide an amazing life experience, but it helped fill a void in my heart. I realize that sounds a bit dramatic, but I’ll explain.

S taging for Bikers for Babies will be on Park Avenue. Park your bike on either side of the street (someone will be there to direct you).  Check in with me to get your wristband and grab some coffeecake provided by Hobee's in the main festival area. Come back for the safety talk.  The event starts with speeches and a ceremony hosted by an executive from my company. A family will speak about their personal experience.  After the opening ceremony, they'll have a countdown, and the walkers will go down the middle of Park Street -- with us cheering them on!  Once they're clear, we're on our way!!! Vroooooom! A very personal request: Please observe the moment of silence during the bagpiper's playing of Amazing Grace to recognize babies who didn't survive. 

There's something about timing. It's all in the timing. Call it chance, call it God, call it source energy, call it coincidence, call it what you want. Each year, @ and I make and decorate holiday cookies. We eat a few, but I take the rest to the parents at the neonatal intensive care unit where @ spent his first Christmas. I include a letter with his picture, telling our story then and now.  This year, I made the cookies, bagged them in tidy sets of three, wrote the letter, and... didn't take them to the hospital on the 23rd as I'd originally planned. And I just plain ran out of time on Christmas Eve with work, dinner with friends, and a candle-lighting service. On Christmas we headed up to my dad's for a few days. The cookies waited patiently. On Sunday, TG and I ran errands, finishing with a trip to the hospital. As we were waiting to give the cookies to the receptionist, I offered a bag of cookies to a couple that was leaving.

"Bah humbug" used to come more easily. For several years, I "celebrated" the holiday season by defending the rights of those people who didn't  celebrate Christmas and were otherwise unamused by the seemingly obligatory ho-ho-ho-dum foisted upon us by retail giants of the universe.  I wrote annual missives about drunk elves crashing stolen sleighs, SPCA sanctions against reindeer breeders, and other snark.  You still won't catch me caroling in my living room, unless it's in attempt to drown out the Duck Dynasty holiday CD that X "hilariously" sent home with @. I don't flinch (much) when @ puts a Santa hat on my head. My holiday letters have undergone significant snark removal. And although @ is far past believing in Santa, you won't hear him admit it.  Earlier this month, I had an assignment: Write about the Connected Santa program. I found it an amusing request, despite my gradual but significant holiday-letter snark red...

A funny thing happened just after I left the sushi restaurant where we celebrated @'s birthday. First there was an odd sound, just over my left shoulder. And then someone yelled from a car in the parking lot. I initially thought the driver had thrown something from the car, but his reaction made it clear that he had just seen something strange. I looked to see what had landed behind me. A wingless pigeon. They don't fly very well. And their connection with concrete delivers an odd thwack-splat sound. What in the heck? To my right, atop the light pole in the middle of the Lucky's parking: a hawk. Watching the pigeon, like, well, a hawk.

At dinner it was all about the olives. Do these olives taste different?  Does this olive look like a hat? Are the green olives bigger because they have the red thing in the middle? Before dinner @ had asked for the key to a cabinet. When I asked why, he said he wanted to see his brother's ashes. I hesitated, but I had to separate my own reaction from his request. There wasn't a reason to deny his request. It was unexpected but simple, attainable.

Once upon a time in history, I went to my first black-tie fund-raising dinner. The food was great. But I was more amazed at the dresses the women were wearing. It wasn't only the money that went into the dresses, it was the "enhancements" (so to speak) that also went into those expensive dresses. At the time, X and I made light of things with new tag lines like "Better Fund-Raising through Cleavage" and "Boobs for Babies." Apparently the black-tie dinner demographic is shapely.

This Saturday was one of @'s favorite days of the year, the annual March for Babies walk. He was six months old and still on oxygen the first time I did the walk, but he has been there every year since, making it his sixth walk and my seventh. In @'s world, the first few years were about the balloons and the noise, then it was about being a surviving preemie, and now it's about helping babies and walking for his twin brother. It's a tiring day for me, both physically and emotionally. It's a reminder of

I spoke at an event at Valley Med this morning as part of a "town hall" panel about prematurity at the opening of a new NICU family support program for the hospital. Here's my speech. I was at the grocery store on Tuesday and the checker asked me how many kids I have. It’s a pretty simple question. Innocent. Yet, it’s probably the hardest question in the world for me. The easy answer is to say one. But the fact is that I have two sons -- I have this amazing, intelligent, goofy six-year-old sidekick who charms the socks off of people every day. And in my heart, I have his twin brother, who I held in my arms for only an hour but will always be a part of me. I usually say I have one child because it’s somehow easier to say that out loud. But inside I always know the difference. I went in for a regular prenatal check on a Friday afternoon and was in the hospital within an hour. I remember walking by the NICU on my way to check in and thinking that I’d rather jump from...

What is scarier than standing on the edge of a cliff? Walking into a NICU for the first time. Posts about @ and N: http://wordjanitor.blogspot.com/search/label/preemie

Interestingly enough, one of my previous jobs included working at golf tournaments every six months. Our company and hosted golf tournaments designed specifically for executive schmoozing at trade shows. The executive schmoozing, in itself, makes it even more amusing that it was my job to be there. At that point in my job history, I owned one suit and it was the one I interviewed in. My role was as a magazine editor and the tournaments allowed me the opportunity to meet execs of companies we might profile. But it was mostly an escape from the fluorescent lighting and concrete floors of the convention center. And it was an opportunity to spend the day with the professional golfer hired to amuse and gladhand the execs. The best of the bunch was David Fehrety , also known as "the sharpest wit in golf," who writes for Golf magazine and does commentary for CBS. How can you not like a guy whose tagline on his web page says "Raising potty mouth to a third-grade level"...

I belong to a very exclusive club. It's club no one ever wants to join. I'm part of an an online group for parents who have lost infants. I met a woman named Lisa through e-mail yesterday. She recently had preemie twins and her beautiful little girl passed away. I wrote this right before @ and N's second birthday. For Nobie In my mind, you are six years old Though if you were here, you would be only two I see you every day in my heart You are in a meadow, at a fence And you are happy And you are beautiful I probably picture you as six Because I think you would be safe That you would be happy That you would be past the pain And you would understand That we are not with you, but you are part of us I imagine that my uncle guides you He shows you how to watch us And answers your every question Though there is no one to answer mine He teaches you and shows you how to find us To watch us, to know us from afar You are connected To everyone I’ve loved And you are connected, to me I...

This is my sixth year walking for March of Dimes. I walk, speak, and work on behalf of March of Dimes to honor my sons -- the one who has the most amazing laugh in the world and the one who is forever etched in my memory. My sons were born at 26 weeks and weighed less than two pounds each. It was, by far, the most frightening and memorable day of my life. And it was just the beginning of months of heartbreak and fear. @s brother died within an hour of being born. We didn't have time to grieve because we had to be strong and give @ every ounce of our strength and love to help him survive. He was in intensive care for nearly four months, had several surgeries, and spent a year on oxygen after finally coming home. We finally felt confident to celebrate on his second birthday. It took that long just to feel confident that yes, this amazing strong fighter of a kid would get to be a kid. @ is five. This year we celebrated his birthday with a trip to the Academy of Sciences and I decorat...