I experienced my first freak-out at school today. It wasn’t that bad, thankfully. In my first class, we got an activity sheet to write our names in a bubble and then fill in the surrounding bubbles with adjectives that describe ourselves. The example read “I am a(n)…Athelete, Mother..” there it was, first thing: that title I want so badly more than anything, and have to work so hard to get. Mother. So I sat there, thinking, technically I still am a mother, it’s just that my child is in Heaven. Totally typical thought process, right? Wrong. Then it hit me, what I had just said in my head – it was so sad and depressing. And that’s all I have right now – all the adjectives that would describe me are sad, depressing adjectives that I don’t want to write in little bubbles. Listening to all the others fill in their sheets and respond to questions from the teacher, I overhear “You can write anything you want; it may be mother, female, etc”. That’s when I got up and politely walked out of class. I know none of that was directed towards me, but come on. I went and sat in the bathroom for a while, just sitting there staring at the stall door. I decided to email Ian and tell him what was going on; I guess I was fishing for someone to talk to about it since I certainly wasn’t going back in the classroom. I got a response almost immediately and felt bad; my email must have sounded so sad, because his only response was “we should chat”. I know that means, don’t feel pathetic about how you’re feeling, come talk about it – which I am so grateful for. I went up to his office and thankfully, Crystal was in her office as well. The 3 of us sat in her office, getting teary eyed and recalling the day everything happened like we were old friends remembering something we had all gone through together. Which is true; they have been there for me since I found out I was pregnant and now through everything else.

The first day I returned to school, last Monday, I bumped into Ian as I was coming up the stairs into school. Minutes later, Crystal walked off the elevator right in front of us. I was so apprehensive to come to school that day; it was if God once again assembled his angels and had placed them perfectly. I joked in an email to them that week that I was suspicious that they were both hiding angel wings under their shirts – they always seem to be in the right place at the –very much needed- times. Today as I was leaving the building to walk to my final class, I wondered if I would bump into either of them as I was getting off the elevator. The doors opened, and sure enough down the stairs came Ian. “My wings have radar”, he said…I’m not so sure he was entirely joking.