Year 28

Last night I dreamed about lilacs. They’re starting to grow on the bush in our backyard, although there seems to be more green than purple today. When I was younger I would pick lilacs each year for my mom’s birthday, which happens to fall just one day before my and my twin’s birthday. This morning, she texted us both to wish us a happy day. She told us that on her 28th birthday she had gone to the doctor’s for an x-ray. We were overdue at that point, and the x-ray revealed that Brittany was breach. It was 1986 and there were no high-tech ultrasounds that showed our fine facial features. She had to trust that her body would take care of her babies. She had to have a blind faith that was bigger than her knowing. At home my dad was watching my brother, Alex, and building a wooden swing in the backyard. It was the swing she would use all summer to rock her babies. For an entire summer she would hold her babies and rock, watching her other three children play in the grass. Perhaps it is not as romantic as I am portraying it to be. But at twenty-eight years old, only some five miles from her the backyard, where the lilacs were in bloom, she heard the doctors say that her twins were ready to be born. She was the same age as I am today when she gave me the ultimate gift: life. I believe that in the process of child birth, women pass on an innate strength to their daughters. I know for certain that my mother gave me more than just her trait of strength. Last weekend at my wedding shower, we stood in the backyard, in front of my lilac bush as a good friend exclaimed, “oh my gosh, you look just like your mom! It’s crazy!” She had never met my mom before and the similarities often surprise people when they see us side by side. At twenty-eight it is apparent to me that in more ways than one, I am my mother’s daughter. And for this I feel grateful and ready to embrace the year to come.