8/8/88

George was picking on me the other day because it seems like half of the posts on my blog pertain to the anniversary of something or other. She says she's waiting for me to write a post on the anniversary of the day I started using that new brand of dental floss or something equally ridiculous. So georgie-porgie, this thread is at least kinda-sorta for you.

I don't know if any of you noticed it, but today's date was 8/8/08. What's special about this date is that I can remember what I was doing exactly 20 years ago today. I was on a picnic with my mom and some close friends of our family - Judy & her children, Tiffany and Brian. These 3 people had lived with my family during those crazy days in the early '80s when as many as 12 people lived under my parents' roof at one time. Twelve people! In 4 bedrooms! How we kept from killing one another is a mystery, but this just goes to show that my parents earned their nominations for sainthood long before they even hit 40 years old.

But back to 1988. Judy had finished her nursing degree a couple years before & moved away with the kids, but they were still family & we liked to visit with them. We had gathered together at a park on that day in August to enjoy some of the final days of summer before we kids had to return to school. During the picnic someone commented on the date: 8/8/88. That's a lot of 8s! We wondered when those numbers would come together again in such a mystical way. Someone mentioned that it would be 100 years, of course, but then someone else pointed out that it was only 20 years until 8/8/08 came around. We sat, munching on sandwiches under an overcast sky, wondering what we'd all be doing in 20 years time.

And now here it is. Two decades later. I'm a proper adult now. House. Husband. Cat. I can't remember what I expected of myself back then. I suspect that I thought I'd have a child by now. Maybe a job in publishing. Certainly I wouldn't be a housewife married to an English guy who makes video games. That seems far too far fetched for even my childhood imagination.

But the thing that surprised me most ... and I hope you'll forgive me if I get serious for a bit here, but ... the thing that surprises me most is that Judy is gone. She passed away about 2 years after that picnic. She had cervical cancer. She was the first loved one I'd even known who had died. It was a very painful time & I hope you'll forgive me if I don't go into the details here. Suffice it to say that Judy was a great lady who loved my family very much. If she were here today I'm sure she'd be very happy and proud of us. I think she'd also tell my mom that she should practice her guitar more often. I can almost hear them singing along together in the kitchen.

It's astonishing what can happen in 20 years, isn't it? The painful times & the good times, too. The days when you thought you'd literally die from heartache. Then the days when you laughed so hard you couldn't breathe. So much has happened. It seems that even when I thought I knew exactly where I was going, fate grabbed me & pushed me in a different direction. So forgive me if I don't speculate on my own future. I prefer to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Besides, if history is anything to go by, the future is far better than anything I could come up with on my own.