I was watching another episode of the old Dick Van Dyke show yesterday (going through them one after another). This particular episode concerned a flashback recollection of the birth of 'Rob's' son, Richy, and brought back some memories of my own. Curiously, or perhaps not so curiously, given the memory erasing effects of MS, I remember very little about the birth of my own son (about two hundred years ago). I did remember however, on watching the show, how unlikely the event seemed at the time. I mean, clearly my wife was pregnant, and yet she had been pregnant for a long time (about nine months, in fact), and it was difficult to imagine something actually coming of it. Day after day she continued to be pregnant, no more, no less. She was just a bit fat is all. Well, really fat. But we ourselves were only children (23 years old) and knew nothing but one another. It had always been just us. Had I really caused another life inside of her? Had she really been carrying a whole 'nuther human being all this time? No, it seemed unlikely. After all, we knew nothing about births or babies or parenthood. How had this happened, after all?
Well, things change very quickly, don't they, and we were about to be thrust into a whole new life. Three new lives, actually, for my son would be no more new to the world than we would be to the concept of 'my son'.
After that, I cannot remember how she got to the hospital, or the events that led to her going there. I don't remember who took her, or to which hospital she was taken. I do have a vague memory of pacing in the waiting room, extremely nervous, extremely upset, extremely fearful--not for the baby to be born, but for the condition of my wife, whom, as I could hear coming from the nearby delivery suite, was not cottoning at all well to childbirth. Strangely, as it seems now, I felt that I must apologize to the attending doctors who were the targets of curses and accusations the like of which I had never heard from her lips.
And I remember first seeing him in the little hospital cart by my wife's bedside, as if he had arrived in the world on a catering trolley. And I remember saying, "He looks just like a little Arab", for his skin appeared quite brown for a white person. Do they all come out brown and then fade in the lamplight?
"His hands are so big," she said, "just like yours. I'm sure he will be a pianist."
His hands did not look big to me.
As my son's birthday is coming up very quickly--a birthday he will not see--I am wanting to call his mother to wish him a happy birthday, given that I cannot extend the wish to him. And I want to ask her as well just what happened, what she remembers. And recommend that she watch the Dick Van Dyke episode for a laugh, despite our loss.
Well, things change very quickly, don't they, and we were about to be thrust into a whole new life. Three new lives, actually, for my son would be no more new to the world than we would be to the concept of 'my son'.
After that, I cannot remember how she got to the hospital, or the events that led to her going there. I don't remember who took her, or to which hospital she was taken. I do have a vague memory of pacing in the waiting room, extremely nervous, extremely upset, extremely fearful--not for the baby to be born, but for the condition of my wife, whom, as I could hear coming from the nearby delivery suite, was not cottoning at all well to childbirth. Strangely, as it seems now, I felt that I must apologize to the attending doctors who were the targets of curses and accusations the like of which I had never heard from her lips.
And I remember first seeing him in the little hospital cart by my wife's bedside, as if he had arrived in the world on a catering trolley. And I remember saying, "He looks just like a little Arab", for his skin appeared quite brown for a white person. Do they all come out brown and then fade in the lamplight?
"His hands are so big," she said, "just like yours. I'm sure he will be a pianist."
His hands did not look big to me.
As my son's birthday is coming up very quickly--a birthday he will not see--I am wanting to call his mother to wish him a happy birthday, given that I cannot extend the wish to him. And I want to ask her as well just what happened, what she remembers. And recommend that she watch the Dick Van Dyke episode for a laugh, despite our loss.
2 comments:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6q4c37
This is absolutely hilarious.
Anonymous--Thx for this!
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