Your birthday has passed. My birthday passed a couple of weeks before that. Both days were so profoundly empty without you. As naturally happens when we pass the benchmark of another year I look back at my life, and look forward at what is coming, and I wonder "Now what?"
I spent exactly half of my life so far being your mother. Looking back I realize that even before the day you were born you became the focus of my life, and everything I did from the day I found out I was pregnant with you until now was centered around you. In your earliest months I was your sole source of sustenance. But even when you were able to feed yourself my focus remained your health and well-being, and then as you grew it became your preparedness to move out into and succeed in this world. Helping you achieve what you achieved, in spite of the constraints that Friedreich's Ataxia placed on you, was the primary (and perhaps crowning) achievement of the past 27 years - of the second half of my life so far.
But now what? If I live to be 80 I will have spent 1/3 of my life before you were born, and 1/3 of my life being your mother. I still have 1/3 left. You and I filled a whole life into these 27 years. What could I possibly do with the next third that would be anywhere near as important, worthwhile, or satisfying as this past third?
I am going to help Jaime finish your book, and I am going to help FARA find the cure for Friedreich's Ataxia. You wanted to accomplish both those things. So my life will continue to be somewhat Phillip-centered for awhile longer.
I could leave this world tomorrow and feel like I had lived a life-full, because you did. But I likely have this next third, and it would be a shame to let it slip by. It's exciting to be looking at a blank slate and know that I can write on it whatever I want. But whatever I choose will never be as meaningful as these 27 years I spent sharing my life with you.
