Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Friday, February 29, 2008

Leap Year Day. It’s a unique one amongst our many days because it comes around only once every four years.

I’ve been thinking about dates a lot lately, the significance of the numbers that define us. We carry around our names with us all our lives like brands, but we also do that for special days—the day we come into the world, the day we marry and the day the children arrive, the birthdays of our friends, the days important people die.

Leap Year Day is a poignant one for my circle here in Mount Airy as four years ago a friend’s daughter—young, promising and in her 20s—died of anorexia. Today a service of remembrance for her is being held at Trinity Episcopal Church. With our sadness and grief, there is the promise of new life. Another dear friend’s first grandchild is about to arrive (her daughter’s due date was yesterday), and we’ve all been wondering when that big day would be.

Yesterday, Ann Williams here in our office weighed in: “If the baby’s not going to come today, she better wait till Saturday; she sure doesn’t want to be stuck with a Leap Year birthday.”

We all chuckled and chortled and countered her thinking: if she comes on Feb. 29, Baby Madison could celebrate two birthdays each non-Leap Year—Feb. 28 and March 1.

Maybe she’ll come into the world on March 4—the birthday of a dear friend and a beloved aunt. Come to think of it, the birthdays of so many of my family and friends are clustered around this time of year. Some of my dearest friends were born on Feb. 3, March 4, April 1 and April 4. My own mid-January birthday ushers all theirs in. My ex-husband’s father was born 100 years ago yesterday, Feb. 28, 1908, just missing the Leap Year moniker by a hair.

Whenever Madison Scott Teshke chooses to enter this world, this little girl will hold that date dear for the rest of her days. And so will those who love her. Words are important, but dates are, too.