Today is January 19. Let me tell you about an event which
happened forty years ago today.
It was the coldest day that winter. It had been getting
steadily colder the week preceding, with the temperature reaching five degrees
at 12:30 that morning during the overnight. The wind chill was minus fourteen
degrees.
My wife, Anne, wanted to take a shower and put on makeup,
but I told her that we really didn’t have time. She grudgingly agreed after a ten-minute
discussion. When we walked outside, it was bitterly cold, and the wind was
stronger than it was when I got home from work earlier that evening.
We drove to the hospital
at 10:30 the night of the eighteenth as she was, by now, truly in the throes of
intense labor. It took forty-five minutes to get there, get a wheelchair and
get a nurse to help me get her from the car to the maternity area. Once she was
settled and under the care of the nursing team, I went down to Admitting to finalize
her stay.
When I came back about fifteen minutes later, I was told
to change into scrubs. By the time I returned, the doctor had been called. I
figured this was a good time to have something from the “goody” bag I packed
for myself, so I opened up a Coke and a bag of Fritos. As soon as I did, she
began to gag from the smell of the corn chips. I gave her some ice but of
course, the smell of the chips was still on my hands and clothes. To be
certain, that was the last time I could eat Fritos around her.
The time was ticking, and the contractions came closer
together. Fortunately, the doctor finally arrived at 1:30. He examined her and
promptly announced that the baby would soon be born. He stepped away for what
seemed like an eternity and returned five minutes later dressed in his scrubs.
It was 2:02 AM when we were wheeling her to the delivery room.
It seemed that the entire medical team knew the role he
and she were to play. I was watching with amazement how smoothly each person
was doing their assigned task. Like they had done a hundred times before. I
knew I was extraneous and stood at the top of the bed, encouraging my wife to
do her breathing, to push and to wipe her face with a cool cloth.
Suddenly, the doctor sternly but kindly instructed her to
push. It was nine minutes after two and there was now a sound that previously
was not heard, that of a crying baby. It seemed the entire team exhaled a a
collective breath of relief and began congratulating us as they continued their
post-delivery chores.
Finally, within a couple of minutes, the head nurse
handed our daughter to us. We both knew that at that moment, our lives would
never be the same. Of course, up until then, even as we were dealing with labor,
we had tried to come up with the name for our child. But at that moment, we
knew we had the perfect name for our beautiful first-born.
Today, it will be eighty here in Florida, a far cry from
your birth day, yes? Happy Birthday, Lauren Ashley. We are as proud of you now
as we thought we were then. More so, I believe. You are a perfect daughter and
are now a perfect mother to your two beautiful children. Everything you have
done in your life has been a joy to be able to witness.
I raise the proverbial glass to congratulate you on
everything you have done up to this point in your life: Speech Pathologist,
Wife, Mother. And the best Daughter a Dad could ever want.
To
another forty years, at least. I love you, Lauren. Sto’Lat, Cent’Anni, Na
Zdrowie, Sláinte is Tainte. God Bless
You. Happy Birthday!!
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