Parenting is a humbling endeavor. Being responsible for the emotional, physical and financial well being of another human being, there are so many times where you second guess even the most well researched of decisions. I think it must be nice to have the only two people on earth who would move the world for you say, “You’re doing a great job, Kid. Keep up the good work.” no matter what the rest of the world is saying. Many times I’ve imagined what it would be like to have my parents offer advice, criticism or kudos on a job well done when it comes to raising my kids because imagining is all I have for that.
On the morning of December 6, 1997, I had no way of knowing that I was two days away from being a twenty-one-year-old orphan. That Saturday morning the sun was shining and my father was dying from cancer. My mother, a registered nurse, had been taking care of him and was prepared to do so until the very end, so when she didn’t come downstairs by eleven a. m. I went to her room to waken her.
I walked to the end of the hall and for a moment, I hesitated. I don’t know if it was instinct or fear that stopped me, but I stood in front of her door for a minute before turning the knob. In that moment of hesitation I felt that the world was about to change. I opened the door and was immediately aware of being the only living person in the room.
The minutes that followed are hard to recount, partly because they are painful but mostly because emotionally I shut down. The person who had brought me into the world had ceased to be. My father was dying and I had to tell him that his wife, my mother, was dead. There were a slew of phone calls; to emergency services, my sisters and brother, my mother’s sister in Florida, the priest, the undertaker. When it was over, I wouldn’t be anyone’s child. Soon my siblings and I would be grown-up orphans. The night of my mother’s wake, my father died and it was then that we lost our first line of defense. We were on our own.
Five years later, I was living in New Jersey, forty weeks pregnant with my first daughter and celebrating my twenty-sixth birthday with a friend at lunch. My pregnancy had been relatively uneventful with the exception of developing pregnancy-induced hypertension. The last month of my pregnancy I went for weekly blood pressure screenings and the day of my birthday was no different. My blood pressure had been high that morning and at around three in the afternoon my husband called the restaurant with the news that my doctor wanted me at the hospital and in the Labor and Delivery unit immediately.
This was the first time I had ever been admitted to the hospital. This was the birth of my first child. Everything seemed out of my hands and as I gowned up and had my first I.V., more than anything, I needed my mom. How was I going to be a parent when my parents weren’t in my life? Where would I get advice? Guidance? Unquestioning support? In the half decade since she and my dad died, there were many occasions I wanted them to be there and I felt their absence deeply, but in the labor and delivery room, helpless, scared and in pain, I selfishly needed the support and comfort only your parents can provide. In the hours before becoming a parent myself all I wanted was to be safely and securely my parent’s child again.
My husband, Dave, was wonderful. My doctor and the nurses were caring and supportive. My labor was not terrible and by all accounts, relatively quick. The moment Abigail Elizabeth was born, all six pounds twelve ounces of her, the nurses placed her on my tummy and then Dave cut the cord. After her wipe down the nurse handed her back to me. Wrapped snugly and resting in my arms this perfect little person gazed up at me with a look that said, “I know you. You’re my momma and I’m safe.” That was when I realized just how completely I could adore another person. I also realized that that was how much my mother loved me and when Dave held Abigail, and his eyes got misty and he kissed her teeny, tiny nose, I felt like I was watching my father, holding me twenty-six years and one day before.
