2017, My Breakthrough Year

My breakthrough year smashed a series of dates and anniversaries in short succession.

The First Key Event of 2017 . . .

The date of my mother’s birthday arrived in late January – it’s a quiet day which rarely rates a mention, but is always remembered by my three sisters and I. It’s unlikely we would have had our mother with us in 2017, even if she had miraculously not died so long ago. In 2017, she would have been 97.

However, I do remember her last birthday well. It was a quiet day towards the end of the summer holidays. I was only 15, and I gave her a little white china vase with some pretty flowers in relief. I’d saved up my pocket money to buy it for her. In 2017, her birthday also quietly came and went. And once again, I remembered.

Breaking Through Year – My Glass Ceiling

My birthday comes in early February, and in 2017 I turned 57. It blew me away to know I had reached my mother’s age at last. That day was followed soon after by the anniversary of my mother’s death.  Because sadly, my mother died exactly a week after my 16th birthday.

About 10 days after that anniversary, there arrived my personal glass ceiling which has invisibly hung over me ever since my mother died: the day when I equaled the age she was on her last day on earth. The far-away edge of the waterfall had arrived.

That waterfall day brought a day of both reflection and amazement – I had made it in full health and happiness, just as I’d hoped when I was 17! Remarkably, the day closed with a chance phone call from my lovely stepmother, who had no idea how perfect her timing was. It was good to share my thoughts with her. While she could never replace my mother, she is an unexpected blessing, unseen when I was gazing ahead.

And . . . surprise, surprise . . . on that waterfall day a huge vista opened up before me. Life continued!

For me, truly, it was a breakthrough year.

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