On the Day You Turned One

This afternoon as the clock flipped over to 1:53pm, I lay curled around you in bed watching you sleep. Your eyes fluttered, your mouth was open in a half smile, fine hair floating out in all directions. I breathed you in – you utterly content with a belly full of milk and me utterly content with my arms full of you. Perfect, marvelous, wonderful you.

It’s been a year since we first met. Blink. A year. Blink blink blink. Where did it go? Yes, the year but also my fear. The uncertainties. The overwhelm. Where did it all go? I’ve gone back and read On the Night You Were Born a number of times now and I can barely relate. I want to reach back in time and hug the woman who wrote it tight. To whisper in her ear that everything is going to be just fine. She wouldn’t have believed me but I would tell her fervently that a year from now, you will find it hard to conjure up the grief. The intense sadness will be replaced with a love so strong that you want to yell it from the mountain tops. Everything will be okay.

In the beginning, I thought about Izzy’s Down syndrome 24-7. There was not a moment that passed that it wasn’t on my mind. I had a permanent Down syndrome thought bubble above my head. When we were in public I had the strangest urge to blurt it out to anyone who even glanced her way. It felt like such a Big Deal that it was all I could think about. I went to bed and woke up thinking about it. I oscillated wildly between acceptance and despair. Down syndrome, Down syndrome, Down syndrome. All the time. 

But as time marched on, the thought bubble started to dissipate. Perhaps I grew accustomed to the idea or more likely, it was because other than Izzy being diagnosed with Down syndrome, Down syndrome essentially played no role in our day to day lives. Izzy was growing into a happy, smiling, engaged baby. She was eating, pooping, rolling, grabbing, smiling and doing everything a baby is supposed to do. Then one day I realized that I hadn’t thought about Down Syndrome in a few hours. Then a few days. Then all of a sudden the scale tipped and the thought bubble popped. Now I have to remind myself. Oh yeah, she has Down syndrome.

Izzy is magic. She is beautiful, joyful, mischievous and determined. She is curious, strong, loud and happy. She is smart, easy going, unstoppable, perfect. And oh yeah, she has Down syndrome.

There is a Japanese tradition called wabi sabi that is centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. If you’ve heard of the term wabi sabi it was likely in relation to Japanese aesthetics and the art of kintsugi, where cracked pottery is filled with gold as a way to illustrate the beauty of age and damage rather than hiding it.

I am not at all saying that Izzy is imperfect or damaged. What I mean is that on the night Izzy was born, my heart broke into a hundred pieces. But over the course of the year, it’s been mended back together with gold. Izzy’s smile and laughter, her determination and the gleam of mischief in her eye, the magic she weaves through our day to day. It’s all pure gold that has pieced my heart back together and made it stronger and more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.

On the day you turned one, we are so incredibly lucky to call you ours. Happy Birthday Izzy bear, we love you.