Happy 3rd Birthday Owain!

I think when your birthday falls so that your age and the date match, it is supposed to be a special one. Owain is 3 on the 3rd, but every birthday for him is a special one. It will always be a day that I will remember as the day before I learned about his Heart. It is the last day of my old life, and the first day of a life that has changed the lives of so many. His birthday is a celebration of so much more than just the day he was born.

Owain has made me a better and stronger person. I have lost friends and made new ones. I have lost faith and found new faith. Every day is a blessing and every breath a miracle.  I Love My Little Owee!

My life has changed so much in the past 3 years. I went from making jewelry as a stay at home business, vending as many weekends of the year as I could fit into my life, to struggling to even find time to look at my beads. Wing Nut used to come with me and hang out in his little carrier or the swing, he was my first little mascot. Exactly 1 week after E Nut was born he was attached to me while I opened up shop at the Charlottesville City Market, an event that opens at 7 am and used to get me up at 5 am to pack up for the day. Little Nut Nut spent many mornings hanging out me. All of them with their newborn cuteness drew people into my booth to see a precious new life, even if they didn’t buy anything.

Vending was also my grown up time. As the babies got bigger and I could get away without nursing for 6-7 hours, vending was my time with adults. My one day a week where I got to step away from my roll as a full time stay at home mom and hang out with others who loved to create things with their hands. The passion that goes along with creating and selling for a living is amazing. There is an energy that makes me bubble with excitement. There were days I came home disappointed with sales, and days I floated home after record breaking days.

I miss those days. I have learned to adapt, to change what I do to make money. It is not as fun, not as fulfilling and not as much money.

I had every intention of packing Owain up and taking him down to The City Market the weekend after he was born. It was going to be Mother’s Day weekend, one of my best days of the year. Always. I was excited to be taking my little newborn down and showing him off while reaping the rewards of a hard days work. I never went back to The City Market, not even to say hello to my friends, not even to shop at my favorite produce stands. My permanent spot that was mine for years and years has been given to someone else. I run across some of my vending friends every now and then. They always wonder what happened to me. I tell them Owain’s story and how my life has changed.

I miss my crafty vender friends. I have learned to make new friends. Most of them are Heart Moms. Most of them have children with special needs. I looked for others who I could relate too. But I didn’t mean to loose all of my old friends. They just faded away.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if Owain was born with a Healthy Heart. I wonder about all of my friends I left behind. I wonder about my business and how booming it was when he was born. I wonder if we would have Ariel, or if we would have more than 5 children by now. I wonder if we would have that dog I have been promising the kids for years, or if we would even still live in this house.

I wonder about if I could really live without all of the amazing people I have met in the past 3 years. I wonder about all of my new friends, my Heart Moms and Dads, the brave parents who flip-flop between being the strongest people I have ever met, to being the weakest saddest bunch I know. I wonder about all the Heroes and their fights, the ones they win and the ones they lost. I wonder.

Owain has made me a better and stronger person. I have lost friends and made new ones. I have lost faith and found new faith. Every day is a blessing and every breath a miracle.  I Love My Little Owee!

My life is perfect. I have accepted what has been given to me. I just wish I could change what has been given to Owain.

I would love to give Owain a Healthy Heart. I would love to change things for him, so that he could be whole. I know that can’t happen. All I can do is be brave for him when he needs me and do everything I can to celebrate his life every day. His life is a celebration, today we just get to eat cake for dinner.