Do you ever wonder?

Do you ever wonder what a particular day means to someone else?

I always get a little depressed around the holidays, it's not a good thing, but it's a fact. There are several things that I feel contribute to this slight depression that I have.

1. The stress of buying Christmas gifts.
2. The stress of splitting up the days between families.
3. My dad left our family on Dec. 26, 2002.
4. My grandma had open heart surgery in November 2002. Although she pulled through and is a very active 81 year old, it was a very scary and hard time on my entire family.
5. My grandpa died on Jan. 20, 1994 and my grandma has always struggled with depression around this time.
6. Claire was born and passed away on Feb. 10, 2006.

So, within a 4 month stretch my family has experienced a lot of downers over the years. While I was thinking about this the other day (and trying to find perspective to overcome it), I thought about a close friend of the family. He and his first wife lost 2 baby boys within days of each of them being born. Although I know this fact about his past, we have only talked very briefly about it two times in the almost 6 years that I have known him. Once being when I was told I had Strep B when I was pregnant with Hunter (this is what one of his boys passed away from like 26ish years ago), and again when Claire passed away. He recently told me that just like I look at 3 year old little girls and think about what Claire would be like, he looks at Lincoln and thinks about what each of his boys might be like. He has never told me their birthdays or days that they passed away. It makes me wonder what I've been doing on those days over the last 6 years and if I've been insensitive to his bad moods.

So there started my deep thought process on what any particular day might mean in the life of someone else. February 10th for me is a bitter sweet day, the day I got to meet my first daughter, and also the day that she left me to go to Heaven. For another family that I know in STJ February 10th is a wonderful celebration of their first daughter's birthday.

I'm going to make it my goal to be sensitive to others lives, moods, and feelings. You never know what may have happened on a particular day many years ago for them.