I still have the shoe, do you?

The year was 2000. I was 23. I had met the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with, raise a family with. He would say we were going to have a baseball team and I would disagree purely out of fear of giving birth. It was a joyous time of planning out our lives and how it would go. Ha! Little did we know our plan was not the plan that we would be living out. Fast forward to 2002. This is the year John and I married. I was blessed with a wedding shower a couple of weeks before the big day. I received lots of gifts and goodies to help John and I get our life together started. But there was one gift in particular that has NEVER left my mind for several reasons. It was a mystery gift - the card was not signed and no one would take credit for it. And when I pulled the item out of the bag I was confused. It was a baby shoe. 1 shoe out of the pair. The card had a clever little saying to the effect of you'll get the other shoe at your baby shower and at that time you'll find out who gave you the shoe. While this is a cute idea, it is not so cute for me. #1 I hate surprises and suspense. I wanted to know who did it, and the thought of having to wait until I was pregnant was torturous to me. #2 I never got pregnant. 11 years have passed and still no baby and no idea who gave me the shoe. I still have the shoe and I think about the person who gave it to me. I wonder if she has held onto the shoe like I have or did she lose it along the way or just give up and throw it away. I'm beginning to think I'll never know the answer to these questions, but I'm also beginning to be at peace with it. There is a reason John and I aren't parents, although I don't know why and yes it's painful - it just may be the way it is supposed to be. It still feels like a punch in the gut when I hear a pregnancy announcement and I suspect it will always feel that way. And lucky me, I got to experience that sock in the gut twice recently. The first is my best friends sister in law. This one stung because they are newly weds and she got exactly what she wanted and since I'm human I am jealous because that's how I wanted it to go. The second announcement came this weekend. My "little" brother and his wife are expecting. It stung but it didn't sting as much as I would have thought.

Even though we don't have children, we are blessed in so many ways and I don't forget that.