Today, February 12, is the anniversary of the day 22 years ago when, in the small hospital on Koh Samui, in the Gulf of Thailand, I gave birth to an extremely premature girl baby. She was at 25 weeks gestation, there were no facilities for even trying to save her, and she died about 5 hours later. I call her Mali, to myself, which means Jasmine, in Thai, and I think of that time occasionally with a sense of loss but also gratitude.
The hospital was surrounded by flowers, the windows open to ocean breezes. Everyone was very kind, and also philosophical, rather than dramatic or doing a kind of "there, there" number on us. It was just a bad-luck case of premature labour, and there she was... For a week after I was able to swim every day in the ocean, stroking away my hurt and coming to life again.
And because of that, we have a wonderful older son Dominic, born later that 1987, in November, also prematurely, but a little more mature, so that the staff at the hospitals in Toronto were able to save him. He is now an extremely wonderful intelligent loving 21 year old young man, our bunny rabbit, as we thought of him those first years. I wouldn't trade him for anything.
So when trouble strikes, I always try to remember that the future isn't knowable, and often out of the greatest sorrow or difficulty comes the greatest joy and wonder.
Sorry to preach. I'm not trying to, but somehow these anniversaries make me ponder...
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