May 17th Coming Up

Certain dates acquire meaning. For most of my life, May 17th was a day I wouldn't notice passing by for any particular reason. Then I gave birth to my son, Simon, on a May 17th. And suddenly that date took on a grandeur and importance beyond any I had ever known. Not my own birthday, nor any other member of my family's. Not the day I got married. But May 17th, the day I became a mother.

Simon arrived eight days "late," having been predicted to arrive on May 9, 1997. It was a cool spring, and the flowering trees still huddled with their blossoms tight in buds. I don't recall being terribly impatient, that last "extra" week. Markus and I went in for one "post-due" monitoring appointment with an ultrasound check-up to see if things looked OK in there. I remember walking, in my winter coat, that Friday after the appointment. We strolled in the Arboretum at the University of Michigan, up near the hospital entrance. The nurse had offered to apply a bit of prostaglandin gel to my cervix to "help things along." But after checking for signs of softening and dilation, she decided I was on my way and would probably have my baby before the weekend was over.

She was right. I woke to sharp cramping pains in my low back the next morning. By mid-day it seemed like time to go in to the hospital. By 2:30 that afternoon we were holding our little boy (7 pounds, 13 ounces and fabulous).

When we took Simon home the next morning, the crabapples and cherries had begun to burst into voracious bloom. I wondered if Simon had been waiting for the warmer weather, just like the trees.

Tomorrow will be my first May 17th since moving back to Germany. And, as has been true for the past seven years, we have the strange task of marking the day of Simon's birth without him here to celebrate with. His last birthday was in 2004, when he turned seven.

For the first four years, we held Lemonade Stands on his birthday to remember him and raise money for childhood cancer research. In 2009 we took a trip to visit family in Germany (and for Markus to attend a conference in Istanbul). We celebrated Simon's birthday with my parents-in-law, eating a cake Miriam baked with her grandmother. In 2010, we were in Salt Lake City and kept the day just for the three of us. If I recall, we went out to eat at The Spaghetti Factory (in Trolley Square), which had been a favorite of Simon's.

We haven't made particular plans for tomorrow. We'll light our candles to remember Simon. Maybe we'll bake a cake or a pie. There's no easy way to do it. May 17th will never return to being any old day in May. And we had eight really good ones--the day Simon was born and the seven celebrations of that day with him.

Without him, we do our best. Maybe we'll take a short walk tomorrow. Or a bike ride. And remember.

A brief photo history:

Early May 1997

About a day old (1997)

Happy Birthday at Linda's house (1999)!

Happy Birthday in Family Housing, Ann Arbor (2000)!

Happy Birthday in Salt Lake City (2004)!

Lemonade Stand 2005.