Bramble Tamble

For the uninitiated, my son spent the first 24 days of his life in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Thankfully, his only issue was that he was about 8 weeks early; he's not had any developmental problems or things like that. (Though he is a bit scared of the dark, which was completely expected, since there was always at least some light on in the NICU.)

Anyway, today was the hospital's NICU reunion. Every year, the staff there puts together some sort of party for the graduates of the NICU and their parents. Last year, it was at the children's museum; the year before, at an area amusement park, and three years ago, at the zoo.

Today reunion was a circus in the parking lot of the hospital. I don't mean that it was haphazard and chaotic - it was, literally, a circus, at least on a smaller scale. They had games and face-painting and clowns and activities and those big concussion pits that I showed earlier in my post about the county fair. And it was a great time, as usual, but it was hot and muggy and generally uncomfortable, and we spent only about a half-hour there today. Still, it's a very important event on my jam-packed social calendar (ha), and we try to make it a point to go every year, if only to show our gratitude to the staff at the hospital for the excellent care that Son received during his stay there.

But here's my thing. I can't seem to make it through one of these things without getting something in my eye. I mean, it's a happy, joyous event, and it's awesome that they've been providing such wonderful care for 30 years (13,000 NICU graduates, said the banner there), yet I'm just on the verge of tears the entire time. I can't explain it. It could be due to any number of reasons - whether I'm recalling the fear and the anxiety of his early birth there, or remembering the poem that was on the wall in the memory of a tiny baby that didn't make it out of the NICU, or just the joy of becoming a daddy three years ago, or what. Whatever the case, I end up spending at least part of the event blinking away tears.

I think I just go every year to reassure myself that that part of my spirit isn't dead. I wonder sometimes.