Last  Saturday, I turned 35.  The tears that glazed over my eyes surprised even me as I off-handedly mentioned that last year I spent my birthday at Disney World.  Now THAT was a birthday to remember.  I was awarded an obnoxious badge announcing my ‘special day’ and was greeted by cheery birthday wishes from most every Disney employee I passed.   I’ve never been so indulged.

It was also the same week I started my Lupron shots for my first (and only) IVF cycle…started them at a bathroom in the Magic Kingdom, actually.  I was so full of tenuous hope, pulled tight across my heart like stretched canvas.  Terrified, excited, hopeful, hopeless.  And so unaware of my future loss.

I’m so glad, really, that I didn’t know about losing Will.  I look at the pictures of myself from that trip and marvel at my smile, a smile that had never known what it’s like to have a doctor tell you that your baby has no heartbeat.  Hands that never held a baby’s broken body.  Lips that never had to tell that awful, awful news to friends and family.

This past birthday, the kids played with left-over 4th of July sparklers in the mosquito-heavy yard.   My niece handed me the final flickering of a sparkler, “Here, Titi (her name for me).  Make a wish.”

To indulge her (as she’s only 12 and a sensitive soul), I closed my eyes tightly and pursed my lips as if I was thinking up some wonderful treat.  I blew out that sparkler with might and smiled and with satisfaction.

It is only you and I who know that I thought of nothing during that wish-session.  Nothing.   Because wishing things that can’t come true is a hollow sort of pain.  I wished nothing, because I would give so much, so much, to see just the briefest glimpse of who Will could’ve been if he’d lived…and I know I can’t.

And so I hate wishes for now, at least my own anyway.

…but I still like Disney World, and I guess that means I’ve not

completely soured on magic and whimsy.