“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.” ~ James Earl Jones

It has been a wonderful, scary and emotional break through week here on ‘myenwfavoriteday. (and it’s only Wednesday night!)’ On Monday, as I watched the Jerry Sandusky interview with Bob Costas, words flowed onto my blog that I never thought I would write as I rarely ever share that part of my life with anyone. I had never even shared the stories with KSP in any real detail. I would talk about the experience overall, almost casually as if I was saying I went to the grocery store, and got eggs, milk, bread and, oh yeah, when I was 6, I was abused, and I also remembered to get green beans. I had never spoken about it in any detail until Saturday when we got into our lively discussion and subsequently on Monday when I posted the blog post.

I was completely terrified to post it, but riding the emotional wave, I hit publish. When I woke up the next morning, knowing it was out there, I felt sick. Partially because it’s not the same as the other content here, and partially because to share it was going waaaaaaaaaaay back in time, to a place that may be mostly healed, but is still uncomfortable to visit and yet it’s part of who I am.

My discomfort became even more evident to me, in that I didn’t follow my normal protocol and send the post to Facebook and Twitter, and I still have not…but, I won’t take it down, and still, I am not ready to share it completely, which I realize makes no sense at all since I wrote about it in the first place.

As the wonderful comments on the post suggest, and as was my intent, it may help someone, even one person and that’s all that matters…so here it will stay in its home, only to be found if someone has a need to read it.

That said, the love I received in response, was so moving. From old friends and new, you saw through the discomfort of the post, gave me a virtual hug and realized the the intent of the post. My heart belongs to you.

For those that come here and expect to find other kinds of content, I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable in any way, that wasn’t even part of my intention, as I myself am still slightly nauseous that it’s out there. But again, I won’t take it down because it may help just one person in some minute way, which is all I want and because I do believe in some way this blog belongs to all of us, any one that can or wants to be helped, nurtured, inspired, or validated, can do so here.

So if those times were a dark night, today is that brightest tomorrow, and much like this blog helps bring me along to my brightest tomorrow, and I hope it will do the same for others, for today, we remember that we all belong to someone.

If you don’t know it, today, Thursday, is World Prematurity Day. 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely each year with 13 million babies born too soon worldwide. Q and E are two of those babies.

To say that our journey with them in the first months of life was dark would not really do it justice. There was no guiding star, or holes with streaming light, it was dark…but yet, the light filled our hearts for they were alive and fighting. On, off, on off, the lights would flicker every day, every second for months and months. Sometimes the lights still hit a glitch and briefly, oh so briefly flicker but then turn on to shine again and fill our lives with all the love and light we have today.

There are families today that are going through some version of everything we have been through and some version of what every family before us has been through.

Yesterday, I was asked to go to a corporate outing for the March of Dimes to speak as a Mom who has been affected by prematurity and to say thank you to Big 5 Sporting Goods who so generously gives their time, energy, resources and financial gifting every year to The March of Dimes.

As I spoke, as usual, I started to croak and tear, but I persevered.

As I wandered through my story and took them along for the ride (if you have read “A Peek into the Window of my Soul” post you have been on part of this journey), I ended with a thank you for not only me as my precious babies mother, or KSP as their daddy, but for our parents as their grandparents, and our sisters as their Aunts, and our grandparents as their great grandchildren, and equally as important, for Q and E, for keeping them together in this world.

Q and E belong to all of us and to one another.

All the babies in all of these families belong to not only the parents, but to entire families.

The March of Dimes, the good friends, family, people, and companies that support this organization are top of mind for me today as a giant thank you.

www.Inspire.com the community that supports so many of these families going through several different types of issues, one of them being prematurity, is also a giant thank you.

To my own family and friends, who walked side by side with us, if only in our shadow, to be there for whatever we needed, thank you from the very bottom of my heart, the depths of my soul and with emotion and love for which there are no words to utter.

To all of you, who have offered words of encouragement and support, hugs, likes, and participated with this blog in any way, I thank you. You helped give me my shining light. You ripped off the last piece of the ceiling that lets the sun shine in completely. I belong to you.

We all belong to someone. Whether you are a mother, father, daughter, son, brother, sister, pet owner, niece, nephew, grandmother, grandfather, friend, we all belong to someone and without you, their life would feel as if it’s missing a very important piece of the puzzle of their heart. Today, reach out, tell these people you love them, or you miss them, or that they just mean a lot to you. If they are no longer here with you, you still belong to them and they to you. A little smile and a quiet thanks and hug in your heart, should do the trick.

Feel these people, they are what matters in life. Like the precious lives of Q and E which I can truly credit to awareness of days like World Prematurity Day which generate funding for research that has blessed all of us in some way, and today, be grateful for the people you belong to and those that belong to you. Doing so, will make it everyones’ ‘newfavoriteday.’