Seventeen

My son's birthdays have always been a special event in our home, especially for the 14 years that it was just he and I.  I looked forward to every single birthday, planning ahead, making sure that I got just the right cake, just the right card, just the right invitations for his party....gosh, it has been so long since we were able to have a little-guy birthday party.  I think the loss of those little joys is one of the things that makes his growing age that much harder. 
After all we've been through over the past two years, birthday parties seem like the smallest of of all things that would make me sad on this birthday-eve, but they do.  There were so many of those parties when Josh was little - parties at the bowling alley, the skating rink, the swimming pool;  little boys and girls running around, enjoying each others' company, loving the fact that they could have fun, free of the confines of school or other peers, looking forward to the look on their friend's face when he sees his gift that they picked out all by themselves.  Ah, yes...there's those tears. 
However, tomorrow marks another year that my son has lived his life, and although he may have had a bump or two in the road, he's recovered enough to enjoy another birthday at home.  Amazingly, he has only missed one of those in the past 3 years, and I hope it is the only one ever.  Plus, he is one year closer to the age of 18, something neither one of us is real sure how to feel about at this point.  This next year will be the tell-all of the future, and I'm bracing myself tonight, before the cake comes out and the candles are lit, for probably the hardest year we've ever had. 
I am reminded of a quote by Sally Field as the mother in "Steel Magnolias"..she said, "...I realized how lucky I am as a woman...I was there when that beautiful creature drifted into my life, and I was there when she drifted out...."  I believe this to be the hope that bonds all mothers, the hope that we can be there for our child in everything.  And although I am also a believer that parents should always go before their children, there is a blessing in being the mother, for, even if no one else had been present in that room on the evening of February 28, 1994, I was there.  I was there when that beautiful baby boy took his first breath of life, and I have been there for 17 years, watching him breathe that life back into this world, and I wouldn't trade one second of that time for anything.  For that, I am very, very lucky.