When I was born, a dragon fly shed a single tear.

It was 4 days of labor and finally, after my Mother endured 9 some odd months and then 96 hours of back labor, including visual hallucinations of a wall covered with plates, I was unceremoniously pryed from her womb. There was a swollen, peach-shaped welt on my temple, and I wailed and then nursed. That's when things got really interesting, because you see, my Mother was 38 and my Father was 21 and they had been married just over 4 years.

The day they were married will go down in infamy. The town heard about it. The wedding guest shook my parents hands, one so tightly that he broke my mother's engagement ring. ( It was never repaired.) Later that afternoon, a grown man was pushed. A dog bit a child. A pregnant woman was slapped. Stores were looted. People were stunned, and whispering "How could this happen?"

I finished growing and find myself thinking the same thing. The weary sighs that were heaved by my Mother's sisters' all make sense to me now.

It could have been so very much worse.

See. Read. Repeat.

This past month has taught me something. I've come too far to let a cookie push me around.