leap into love.

Well, I was going to write about Leap Day today — the gift of an extra day and different ways to celebrate it. But at 6:45a, the phone rang. It was my birthmom's husband, Bob, letting us know that Pat (my birthmom) had fallen and sustained a head injury that required emergency brain surgery and put her into a coma. The doctors had told him to prepare for the worst, so he was telling us to do the same.

Pat is 60, a chain-smoker since 14, an animal-lover, witty, chatty, and one of the bravest, most generous women I know. Being the product of a closed adoption, I didn't know Pat until 15 years ago, and though I was blindsided at first when she and my birthdad found me, I now consider myself amazingly blessed to have her in my life and to be in hers. I am her only child.

But we haven't seen one another for over three years — mostly because she's in Florida and we're in Texas, she has big dogs and a traveling husband and I've got little kids and a traveling husband, and coordinating our schedules and our lives was just too much hassle. We talk with some regularity, we sometimes email and occasionally send real mail, but we haven't been face-to-face for more than a thousand days.

So now, all I can think of is how much I wish I could spend some face-time with her, hold her hand, give her a big hug, let her know how grateful I am that she had me, gave me up for adoption, and came back into my life a quarter-century later. Let her know how much I genuinely love and honor and appreciate her.

So today, please consider just for a moment how tenuous this world really is, how our whole lives are really built upon unstable structures that can topple at any minute. Use this day to connect with someone you love, someone you miss, someone you wish you had made more time for. Let them know how thankful you are for them, let them know on this Leap Day, this gift of a day, their presence is a gift to you.

Come back to us, Pat.