On February 8th, 2010 our lives changed forever.

Morgan woke up in the middle of the night and her water had broken early. Really early. She was only 27 weeks pregnant with Monkey. We were young and he was our first child, we didn’t know what to do.

We ended up at the hospital for the next seven weeks. Monkey was delivered at 34 weeks and as healthy as he could possibly be. By nothing short of divine intervention and countless prayers, he spent no time in the NICU. We went home three days later.

On February 8th, 2017 we were in a very different place. We were at Disney World with our growing family of five and all my wife’s sisters, their parents, the spouses and our niece.

This was not planned on purpose but as we pulled up at the resort we staying at for the next four days, Morgan looked at me and said something close to, “This is a lot different place than where we were seven years ago with Monkey”.

There have been times during last five years (we didn’t know about Monkey’s genetic mutation or seizures until he was two) that we would have not even thought a trip like this would have been possible. There were stretches where he would have 15 – 20 seizures a day.

Our amazing son turns seven this week. Seven, like three from ten and seven from an eternity ago it seems. I feel like we have lived three lifetimes somedays since that day we checked into the hospital and at least two of them were the first 48 hours we were there.

Now, full disclosure here, I have failed. Not just a little but HUGE. I didn’t so much forget about his birthday as I almost let it go by.

I have to travel this week for work and the last three weeks have been three of the longest I have had while working where I do. I don’t have to go too far away for the trip and about didn’t even put up a fight to be home to celebrate. I will be but I can’t believe I even let it come to this.

Every day that my son is with us is a gift. A moment to cherish and hold close. We do not have a guaranteed number of days and certainly not birthdays to spend with him. They are each as important as the one behind and the one to come. For me to even arrive at a point where I could have missed one is heartbreaking regardless of any surrounding circumstances.

We live a far different life than a lot of people. We don’t live it without the company of special-needs parents who live the same way, but we are certainly not the majority. We must constantly fight for our children and be their voice in a world that will marginalize them and forget. They will grow older and the attention and acceptance of the life we live will wane. We will be old people and if God allows, still have our son living with us and being cared for by us.

We cannot afford to let any day and certainly no birthday just pass by without the right amount gratitude and awe. We won’t be perfect, but we can’t allow ourselves to become complacent or too comfortable. I am so thankful that I have an amazing (and forgiving) wife who is the mother to our amazing child who will never let me settle for either.