Resolutions and predictions

My husband asked me yesterday what my favorite New Year's eve memory was.  I had to think for a bit, because when you are married to a musician, chances are you will spend many New Year's eves at home alone.  Don't feel sorry for me, though, because I like to go to bed early.

We decided there was a tie.  There was the party hosted by Bill and Diane Huffman, in Princeton, West Virginia.  It had to be in the early 1990s.  It was the last time I ever drank whiskey or ate anything with rosemary in it.  I had baked two loaves of rosemary bread, which I took to the party, and which I ended up being very sick on.  And the other memorable New Year's eve, was the 'Jamaican' New Year's eve party at my sister and brother-in-law's house.  We ate jerk chicken, sat in the hot tub, and my brother-in-law set off a quarter-stick of dynamite precisely at midnight.  It was pretty unforgettable.

Another New Year's eve activity that I can remember is a tradition we used to have in which we'd sit around the table on New Year's eve (or day), grab a sheet of paper and write down three predictions for each member of the family, and for ourselves.  It was highly confidential.  We didn't dare discuss our predictions and they were sealed in a manilla envelope and stored in the filing cabinet until the next New Year.  We'd get them out, and read them out loud, and see if our predictions rang true.  One year, I predicted Randy and Krystal would climb Grandeur Peak in Salt Lake City, and they did.  I think I predicted Krystal would read a book when she was 11 or 12.  And I think she did.

When Sofie was a couple of years old, I remember writing a prediction for her.  That she would walk that year.  The next year when we opened it I was heartsick to see what I had written.  She still wasn't walking.  She didn't walk that year, or even the next, or the next.  She is only now walking better than she ever has.

We abandoned the prediction tradition and I am careful to predict or resolve anything anymore.  In 2012, I am 'supposed' to graduate from nursing school.  That is, if nothing weird happens.  For example, I could accidentally cut off some of my fingers chopping onions or develop a severe allergic reaction to alcohol prep pads.  Lord knows, you couldn't be a nurse and be allergic to alcohol prep pads.  And trust me, I've considered these possibilities because I know that...anything can happen.  I mean, what are the odds that we would finally have a baby, and the doctor would nearly cost her her life trying to deliver her?  What are the odds that the 12-hour surgery they performed to replace the portion of her skull they took out to relieve the bleeding in her brain would just...disintegrate a few months later?  Or that at one year of age, she would develop an abscess in her brain, and actually survive it?  What are the odds you would take one of the doctors who is so obviously at fault to court, and lose?  Or that you'd be in Park City celebrating the sale of your home and a bite of hummus caused an allergic reaction and she nearly stopped breathing.  Or the time we were visiting family in Illinois and she mysteriously went into respiratory distress and had to be airlifted to a children's hospital in St. Louis?

So I am cautious to predict anything.  Nowadays, when a doctor or other health care professional tries to reassure me about the odds of anything adverse happening, I laugh inside.  But I also believe those odds can work in our favor, and they have.  She lived.  A second team of doctors later fixed her skull.  She smiles a lot and sometimes she even laughs.  She helps me stir pancake batter and grind pepper.  And she knows we love her.

I think about those crazy weird odds and try to approach every day as if a miracle can happen, because it often does.

 Sofie and Grandma Budd after her second surgery.