Does Leap Year Trigger Memories

This past Wednesday we had Leap Day – this only occurs every four years and this year is Leap Year. Leap Year was invented nearly 2000 years ago by Julius Caesar. Are you aware that there are several rules to be a Leap Year? The Julian calendar required that the year was divisible by 4 for it to be a Leap Year.

However, we follow the Gregorian calendar and with that there are a couple of rules in order for it to be a Leap Year;

• The year is easily divisible by 4,
• If the year can be easily divided by 100; it is NOT a leap year, unless;
• The yea is also evenly divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

Why am I writing about Leap Year? For most of us it is just an extra day on the calendar whether it is a work day, like it was this year or if it falls on the weekend then maybe it is an extra day to relax or spend time with our family and friends.

For me Leap Year and Leap Day has a different memory. It isn’t often that someone says I have a memory of Leap Year unless perhaps if you are a Leap Day baby. But Leap Year always takes me back to 1984.

In February 1984 I was engaged – it happened over Valentine’s weekend and it was four years in coming. Both of our jobs were relocating – mine to Buffalo, NY and his to Tampa, FL. We had decided that we would relocate with his job in Tampa and I actually had an interview coming up for a job in the Tampa office. I was very happy and I was looking forward to our moving to Tampa, FL and starting our lives together. We had already chosen a house and it was being built – I was trying my hardest to also convince my fiancée that we should also have an underground pool.

The following week I was off to St. Princes’ Island in Canada for a weekend long conference and I was concerned that I had not heard from my fiancée on Thursday (he was already working in Tampa). I contacted his brother and he flew down with his wife to Tampa to look in on him – my fiancée had been hospitalized with a bad case of high blood pressure. His brother reassured me that all was fine and for me to go off to my conference.

Friday and Saturday morning and lunch times found me making telephone calls to Tampa to see how he was doing. Saturday morning I spoke to a nurse who let me know that my fiancée did not have a good evening as his pressure spiked up over night. As soon as the conference was over on Saturday afternoon and before getting ready for the dinner dance I made a phone call again to Tampa – this time the news was not good – my fiancée had a bad afternoon and was now brain dead. Everyone at the conference helped me pack and made arrangements for me to leave immediately to fly to Tampa.

By Floridian law we had to wait 24 hours to run another CAT scan and to have my fiancée now officially declared “brain dead”. I watched him for a week as they regulated his body temperature, fed him through a tube and had compression socks on his legs. One afternoon I took a drive to the house we were having built, a house we would never share nor would I ever live in – one of our mutual friends then told me that my fiancée was having a pool built at the house and was looking to surprise me.

Finally the decision had to be made to take my fiancée off life support – the date was February 29, 1984. Now, you understand how Leap Year holds more significance for me than just an extra day in the year. Many memories tend to flood my mind on that day – from our first date, to the first time I met his Mother (after a day at Jones Beach in my bathing suit and cover up), to a birthday celebrated at the Rainbow Room.

The memories are good – I learned through his death that I was the stronger individual; and, therefore would be able to survive his death and continue on. Here it is 28 years later and I can still remember his “love of life”, his laughter, the way he was an impeccable dresser and the life of the party and a great dancer. I am grateful for having had him in my life, for understanding my own strength and for being able to help his Mother through that difficult time.

So Leap Year is not just another year that has an extra day in the calendar – it is a year that brings back memories of a wonderful individual and a potential future which instead made me realize my resiliency.

To Memories.