I wrote this family story as an assignment in one of my graduate courses. It was extremely significant as I had just found out I was pregnant and had not yet told my father. There is something truly magical about how having a baby brings family so much closer. I wrote this with my dad in mind...
I guess you could say I was seven and a half months old…or approximately negative one month and a half depending on how you look at it. Mom carefully positioned herself on the sofa around he bulging belly, she was poised and ready to enjoy the gridiron battle between the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins—it was December 5, 1982.
Ever since I can remember, Dad has told me the same things: “Teresa, you’re always in a rush to grow up” and “Teresa, you’re burning the candle at both ends.” I suppose there wouldn’t be any difference the day that I was born.
The night before this cozy interlude, my parents attended a wedding—who got married and where the festivities were are quite trivial—the ride home on the other hand led Mom and Dad on a premature journey. The excited expecting couple laughed as they rode over train tracks. “Oh no, John…train tracks…you know what this means...Baby will be born tomorrow” Mom joked. An unfinished baby room, no name picked out, and their quick laughter proved they didn’t put much stock in that superstition. They laughed all the way home…I was laughing too.
The game had just begun, mom snuggled next to dad—then, her body began to tense; she dismissed the pain, must be Braxton Hicks she thought, and continued to follow the men on the football field. A few minutes passed but the pain had not and she began to worry, “John?” mom got his attention “grab your watch…These pains seem too close together” Dad did as requested and within fifteen minutes they were packed and on the road to the hospital. The doctor examined Mom and decided she was not to deliver that night. He made his last rounds through the hospital, said his goodnights and goodbyes and left for home.
He couldn’t have been home for long when he received the call from the hospital; “uh…doc? We need you back at the hospital, Kathy is going into labor.” So, just as Dad says I was rushing—I rushed into this world at 11:25 p.m. already burning the candle at two ends; my lungs weren’t fully developed leading me straight to an incubator with jaundice and trouble breathing. The doctor and nurse worked diligently to make sure I would be okay but the doctor explained “it’s a fifty-fifty chance; if she makes it through the night, then we’re in the clear.”
Dad walked up to the incubator peering at me through the blurred vision of the tears perched on the brink of his eyelids. Seeing his little girl in an incubator was not easy, he carefully reached his hand inside and my tiny weak fingers reached up and wrapped around his pinkie. He stood next to me awkwardly contorted with his hand in the incubator as I gripped his finger. There he stood, all night long, and when morning came and the doctor returned Dad was still there looking down on me, smiling...I was still breathing, and still holding on to his hand.
If you ask my father I’m still in a rush to grow up and always burning the candle at both ends; but whether it be through sickness and pain, tears and heartache, or love and celebration I know I can always curl my little fingers around his pinkie and he’ll stay with me as long as I need.
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