It was a blizzard.

It was pouring.

It was the coldest day of the year.

It was the night our power went out.

Like a parent recalling the day their child came into the world, Susanne talked to Charlie, as he sat on her lap, about what happened five years ago this day. The day he was diagnosed with diabetes. Not nearly as uplifting as a birth story.

He listened intently to the story as if not knowing how it would end, interrupting only once to say, "I think I remember riding in the ambulance."

"I remember the binky constantly falling out of the crib in the hospital room," Susanne said.

I remember the crib looking industrial and cold. It was like a large cage.

"Where did we sleep?" Susanne asked.

"I don't remember. A chair?"

Did we sleep?

God, he was just a baby - barely talking in decipherable words. Now dark hairs on his skinny, pale legs are sprouting up amidst small hockey bruises and he can reach the top kitchen cabinets with the tip of his finger.

Everything was too big. The crib was too big. Charlie's hospital pajamas were too big. The responsibility was too big. The disease was too big.

And though it was lightly raining and not too cold that night as I followed behind the ambulance telling myself that this wasn't happening…

It was a blizzard.

It was pouring.

It was the coldest day of the year.

It was the night our power went out.