THE DAY THAT YOU WERE BORN
My friend Sharon — a fellow night-shifter — and I were e-mailing last night. (I will miss that when I move to days: our stream of silly nocturnal banter and serious heart-to-hearts, with long silences where one or the other is actually busy working). We talked about her mother, who died when she was 26. I told her it was beyond my comprehension, to lose one's mother. I had been thinking of the loss of a unique companion, the loss of the person who loves you like no other, even if she doesn't always understand you and vice versa. I hadn't really considered the loss of knowledge and identity, not deeply.
But then Sharon said something that made me do so.
My dad can't tell me the story of what it was like when I was born. He barely remembers my birthday. But Mary's mom [Mary is Sharon's partner], nearly every year, tells this long story about how she was at work and started feeling funny, so she went to the hospital and they admitted her right then ... and a million details later, Mary was born. All this stuff Mary hears all the time, and I have no idea what my mom was doing in the hours before my birth.
And now I never will. I don't mean to be morose about it, but if I could do it over again, I'd talk to my mom a helluva lot more.
And now I never will. I know nothing about the day I was born — just one glaring gap in all the stuff Mom knows that no one else in the world does. It's unsettling to think about. I suppose I could ask my dad some stuff, but this is the man who looked at a baby picture of me on my refrigerator and asked, "Whose kid is that?" Um, "Yours." My mom must have told me details here and there, as incidentals and by-the-ways. I remember something about it being a Saturday, a longish labor (though I could have confused that with a sibling's birth), the names I would have received if (a) I were a boy (Paul Edmund) and if (b) my dad got his way (Samantha). But there's no story, really. There are no details to speak of beyond those listed on my birth certificate. And I'm not looking for details about me, really — some self-important "creation myth." More than anything, I just want to know what the day was like for her.
So I asked her. And that was tough because my mom always seems kind of embarrassed when you ask her about the past, sort of like she's terribly surprised that anyone would be curious about her life. She has volunteered details along the way — about being orphaned as a kid, about her terrible marriage to my dad, and other things — but she doesn't really talk about these things in detail or how they made her feel. All these things that shaped her, that inform her life today, are deep down, out of sight, bizarrely irrelevant.
So, damn, I asked her. And I asked her in an e-mail, which heightens the awkwardness, I guess. But we don't live in the same town, and I thought it would be weird to call her and have her answer the phone while she was vacuuming and hear me blurt out "Hey, what were you doing the day I was born?" Instead, I just sent her an e-mail saying I needed to know for an "exercise" — I needed an excuse for the question, because I don't think she'd understand simple curiosity about the past, and I also didn't want her to be intimidated by a feeling that this was the first of many questions, that a can of yucky worms was being opened. I could have waited until I saw her, I guess, but it also dawned on me that she might tell me more in a situation where she wasn't being specifically "interviewed," where she could just consult her own memory and pluck from it the details that she found important.
So here's the frightfully silly e-mail I sent. (You'd cut me some slack if you really knew the circumstances — the ones that keep me a perpetual 15-year-old in my mom's presence).
Hey Mom,
I'm doing this exercise and need to know what you were doing the day I was born. Do you remember any details? Could you share whatever you remember? It doesn't have to be long or involved — just whatever details you remember. Thanks!
Now I'm waiting to see what she says. It will probably unfold like this. She and my stepdad share an e-mail account, which is mostly used for slightly bawdy or cutesy forwards and mildly off-color jokes from friends and family. I almost never receive these forwards because it's widely understood in my family that I'm a politically correct prude who's easily offended. Every once in a while I'll get a terse communication regarding a baby shower or something. But the e-mail account is not generally used for communication per se. My stepdad will likely spot my e-mail and tell my mom, "Kim sent you kind of a weird deal asking about the day she was born." And my mom will be baffled for a bit, then will eventually write something, thinking she has to oblige me for an "exercise." Or she will call me and ask, "What exactly are you looking for? What is this for, exactly? Dad wants to know if you mowed your lawn yet."
I'll keep you posted when I hear from her. In the meantime, if you feel like sharing, tell me about the day you were born.
posted by kc @ 2:13 AM
17 comments
17 Comments:
And Sharon, FYI, I know something about your birth, as channeled through the immortal Karen Carpenter (note first line of second stanza — hehe!):
On the day that you were born
The angels got together
And decided to create a dream come true
So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold
And starlight in your eyes of blue.
That is why all the girls in town
Follow you all around.
Just like me, they long to be
Close to you.
You know that today's a bad day to make me cry, don't you?
(For others, I buried a cousin today who was stabbed to death last weekend while trying to stop some strangers who were attacking his neighbor...)
On a lighter note, I know a couple other things, too: My mother first wanted to name me Sharon Kay, but my father reminded her that because his first wife's name had been Kay, perhaps they should go with something else. Thus, Sharon Sue. (But call me that at your own risk.) And I know that if I had been a boy, I was going to be Bruce. Thank heaven I was a little girl.
Hi, Sharon. I'm sorry for your loss.
... And Kim speaks highly of you, all the time. I hope I get to meet you someday.
My middle name is Kay! I'm not fond of it either. I don't know where it came from. I don't know of any Kays in our family — one more thing to ask my mom. I suspect it had something to do with my mom being a sucker for the triple alliteration.
Yes, thank heaven you were a little girl, Sharon. Although, you would have had some nice alliteration going with Bruce.
It was the first day of school (my father was a jr high librarian).
My mother thought she had the flu.
Turned out to be me.
Were you the first baby, AEL? And what is the "E"?
I love that your dad is a librarian. It's the perfect parentage for you.
nope, I was baby number 2, and baby number last. My brother was 6 weeks early, so you'd think my mother might have had an inkling that it was me rather than the flu in August. But since I was eight weeks from my due date, I guess she was surprised.
E is for Elizabeth.
My mother is also a librarian by degree. I was genetically programmed to be a bibliophile.
OK. My mom didn't respond via e-mail. She called me. She acted like it was a weird request, as I suspected. But she played along. She said she didn't remember "much." But she remembered this: Jenny, my sister, was at my grandparents' house in Wisconsin. My brother was with my mom. My mom hadn't been feeling well, so she went to spend the night with her in-laws. My dad was working nights, but not for the railroad yet — for some other company. He and my mom were both 23. My mom woke up in the middle of the night with labor pains, so my grandma called my dad at work, and he came and took her to the hospital. She thinks it was a Saturday. She remembers clearly that my older two siblings were both born on a Tuesday. (Being a journalist, I need to check this out, even though my mother said it). At the hospital they gave her an anasthetic that put her completely to sleep and I was born about noon. "It was not natural childbirth," she said. "Definitely." She did not see me until she woke up later that evening. "You weighed 8 pounds and 2 ounces. You were my biggest baby." She doesn't remember any complications. She said, "You weren't any trouble at all, even then." Fathers weren't "allowed" in the delivery rooms in those days, so my dad was in the waiting room (probably flirting with a nurse). She did have one bizarre memory. After she woke up she recalled something about a "stomach band." And she asked the hospital staff why they made her wear that band, and they said they didn't, that she must have overheard them — in her anesthetized stupor — talking about "the other lady" in the delivery room who had had some problem births in the past and who consequently had to be outfitted with a stomach band. Has anyone ever heard of this contraption?
So that's what I now know of the day that I was born.
EIGHTS WEEKS early, AEL? Wow.
Did your parents meet in librarian school?
Jeez, I go away for 20 hours and have tons of catching up to do!
cl, thanks so much for the kind words. I look forward to meeting you someday, too, because Kim also has spoken highly of you.
Kim, I'm so glad you talked to your mother! Now you just need to tell her the truth about why you asked -- that she and her life matter and that before something takes her away from you, there are some questions that need to be answered.
I have become a huge fan of those little books you can buy to give to your parents in which they're supposed to answer some question for every day of the year and then give it back to you. The questions include things such as "What were you like as a little girl/boy?" "What were you doing the day I was born?" "Did you ever have a serious girlfriend/ boyfriend before Mom/Dad? If so, tell me about him/her." You get to know your parent that way, but you also learn things about yourself and your family history.
It doesn't always work, though. We got those for Mary's mother and my father one year for Christmas, and Mary's mother filled hers out dilligently and returned it a year later, but if my Dad has ever written a word in it, it would be news to me.
KC, I'll have to ask my mom for more details. I was born on Super Bowl Sunday of '74, so I need to investigate whether my parents were joking about my father being well-received at the bar across from the hospital, accepting congratulatory drinks and smokes during the game while my mom rested up.
(It sounds plausible.)
"You weren't any trouble at all, even then."
Hehe.
I like the idea of those notebooks, too, Sharon, especially for those of us with reticent parents. My mom is also a neat freak. She throws virtually everything out; I'm not going to come across a stash of her old love letters or anything revealing like that. It's all in her head.
Cl, you were a superbaby! You should see who won. Speaking of congratulatory smokes, forget about the dad! I always thought it'd be a good idea to let the new mom knock back a highball and enjoy a big stogie.
By that last comment, cl, were you chuckling because I am a wee bit more high maintenance now — at least to my friends, if not to my mom? Hehe
I was born on Easter at 2:01 a.m. My family lived in Cherryvale, which doesn't have a hospital, so I was born in Coffeyville.
My dad was sleeping at home when I was born. He had to rest up for the big Easter church service.
I don't know what that morning was like for mom. She told me about it a long time ago, but I didn't appreciate it enough back then to commit it to memory.
I was born on Labor Day, about two weeks late. It was ungodly hot that summer and my mom was ready to be un-pregnant. She woke up and got up to go to the bathroom and knew immediately I was on the way. (I was baby number 5.) She woke up my dad, and he asked if there was time for him to take a shower. She said there was. Then she made him his coffee.
I was big (9 lbs, 8 oz) and red with lots of dark hair. My dad said I looked like a little Indian baby.
Also, good job, kc. I would feel awkward asking, too -- if my mom didn't already tell me every detail of her life -- but someday you'll be glad you did.
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