Sometimes there’s a time in your life that you would think would end up in disaster, but, sometimes, a miracle comes through. You usually promise to yourself that you will be eternally grateful to God, but we always somehow end up breaking that promise. It’s these moments that make us realize that life is fragile, and we should never take it for granted.

One day I walked inside my room and decided I would clean out my desk drawer. I had nothing else to do anyway. I was absent-mindedly cleaning as I came across a tiny little hospital bracelet that could barely even fit around my little finger. I began to grow more and more curious about the bracelet, so I decided to ask my mom. I remember her proud eyes as she said “That was your bracelet from when you were a little baby in the hospital” I had always known I was born drastically early, but I had never gotten the full story. Timidly I asked “Mom, what was it like?” and slowly became enveloped in her story.

It was June 1998 and my mom was 7 months pregnant in a post office when her water suddenly broke. She was rushed to the nearest hospital with a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which was Baylor Hospital in Dallas, 2 hours away from our small East Texas town. Whenever a baby was born this premature there were usually horrible complications, but whenever I was born somehow my lungs were fully grown and I was healthy as a horse, even though I do admit my dad jokingly asked if they were sure I wasn’t an alien. I was a picture of helplessness in the little incubator they put me in. I had to be fed through wires put into my nose and I was hooked up to all sorts of machines that did who knows what just to try to keep me healthy. That day I would always smile as my parents walked by, somehow knowing that these people were the ones who would take care of me and love me all my life no matter what.

My mom smiled as she remembered that part “The doctors said it was just gas, but I know that little baby knew who we were.” That day I learned a big lesson. A miracle is something that gives hope in a time that seems nothing good would happen. I looked up at my mom’s eyes as she said “So, basically the whole point of me telling you this is to tell you that, Kathryn, you are a miracle.”