We all have them! One, or more, things that happen in your life that change your course. Whether it’s getting your license, graduating, getting married, getting divorced, moving, having children, or losing a loved one. Depending on who you are, depends on how you classify these moments.

About five years before I turned thirty I told myself there were three things I wanted to accomplish before my milestone birthday. I wanted to finish my masters, buy a house, and get married. At 28, I bought my first house and graduated with my masters. At 29, Steve and I got married. I cut it close, but mission accomplished. These three things were all so significant in my life, and I would say laid the groundwork for these last ten years. All I would consider defining moments.

Family has always been something I hold near and dear to me. My parents and I are very close, we talk almost daily, and there isn’t much that happens that we don’t share with each other. I only hope that as my children grow, we remain as close as I am with my parents. I have heard with boys it’s a little different, so fingers crossed they check in with mom frequently.

As we have grown older, and wiser, my sister and I have also gotten a lot closer. We don’t always agree on life views, and react very differently to the same situations, but at the end of the day, if I need a shoulder to cry on I know hers is there. She will make sure there is a towel on it though so she is not covered in tears and snot, but it’s there.

It’s easy to look at all the “big” things and be grateful for them. I know I wouldn’t be half the person I am without my friends and family, and the support they have bestowed upon me my entire life. With Ella’s disabilities we take so many of the “small” things and celebrate those too. Many of them have become defining moments in her life.

Truth be told, small moments are something I have make a point to cherish. In June of 1999, I unnecessarily lost a person that had such a significant impact on my life. A family friend, Kyle, who by default was like a brother to me, passed away after being involved in a motor vehicle accident. For days he fought to stay with us but in the end, a higher being had different plans for him.

I will never forget going to see him at the hospital for our last visit. It was only a month before we had laughed and made jokes at his family’s Memorial Day party. We were both the youngest in our family and loved to bust our parents chops that there were not enough solo pictures displayed of us. We would say we were the black sheep.

That day at the hospital, and the days that followed, I watched my family and his family grieve. He was so full of life and had so much more left to live. We had often talked about his future. How he wanted his own family one day. How he knew his antics had given his parents multiple gray hairs over the years, but vowed to turn his life around and make them proud of the man he was becoming. He had such big plans. He also had the kindest heart, and always had my back. I remember he had offered to come to my college and rough some jerks up who were giving me a hard time. Kyle didn’t always make the right choices, but I have to believe he always had the best intentions.

Losing Kyle impacted me in ways I wouldn’t realize until years later. It made hug my parents a little tighter and never say goodbye without an I love you. It made me appreciate all I been able to experience in my life. Falling in love and getting married was something he would never do, but I know he would have wanted me to.

I look at Ella and think of all the things her little body has been through and am so grateful that she is with us. I know how each moment we have with all of our children is a gift, and one that should not be taken for granted. As hard at it is, I try to take a step back every now and then and remember that not every day is promised.

Losing Kyle was certainly a defining moment in my life. One that I continue to feel twenty years later.

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