Last week, I ran 5K in preparation for my upcoming 10K in support of the Women and Babies Program at the hospital the girls were born in. Admittedly, I was kinda slow and heading up a hill in the cemetery down the street from me. Breathless, I arrived at the top of the hill.

Slowing my pace, I looked up at my surroundings, which apparently is not something I do very much and I startled at the view. There, on top of the hill, I saw headstones covering rolling hills and behind that, the city; buildings and cranes and trees. Seemingly a world away given how quiet the cemetery was. But, when I turned, from my viewpoint I could then see the girls’ NICU and Ella’s rehab hospital. The irony of standing in a cemetery looking at these two significant locations was not lost on me. How easily the outcome could have differed, how standing in a cemetery could have meant visiting one or both of my girls.

Standing in the cemetery, desperately trying to catch my breath, I remembered how lucky we are, how trivial it all seems sometimes. Yes, there are shitty days, but those are outnumbered by the good ones. And I cannot tell our future; where we will be able to live, if Ella will walk, whether the kids will be happy, but I do know our past, and I know that our present took us on a different path, not the easiest, not the shortest, but one that lead us on top of the hill.