Bearing the Fruit of Purpose

Twenty-eight years ago I was pregnant with my first child. April 7th was my due date and I awoke that morning, ready, waiting, wondering what to expect? My husband and I hung out together; him irritable, me pensive, both of us bothering the other. It ended up with him going to a friend's house and me driving home, mad. I wished for labor to begin; oh how badly he would feel, me calling him from the hospital, him now dashing to me. But labor did not happen and he returned blitzed. I laid in bed, angry, feeling alone. Once he was in bed, too, and asleep, I calmed down. Our baby, Leila Sandra, would not come for 14 more days, and once again, my husband and I would be together, him just home from playing in the band and me up late watching "Fanny Farmer". He was eating a hamburger, urging me to eat it with him, and I refused, trying to watch the movie, but he kept saying, "Comon. For the baby." And just then, a spiriling pain swirled through my stomach and into my legs. "No!" I growled, rising to go to the bathroom and there I discovered labor had begun as I stood to see "the plug" swimming in the bowl.

I told him, we called the hospital, and then both of us slid into bed, our eyes wide, excited, waiting as the nurse said not to come in until the pains were four minutes apart. He got back up to watch TV. I laid there not a clue of what to think. In the morning, we called our families and around four in the afternoon, I went in and that evening at four minutes til midnight, I delivered my porcelain doll, but before that my husband had gone on to play again at the club. I had sent him away. His eyes were bulging and I knew he'd need to go out and have a smoke or two or three and something told me it would be better to summon my sister to help and to send him back to work.

Leila Sandra Wolford, April 21, 1984

Early that next morning, around two, I heard him coming down the hospital hallway, his keys clanging. Leila had been born for a few hours and into his arms she went. He sat there and cried, looking up at me, and saying "thank you." And then he stood, come toward me, leaned down and kissed me. I have never forgotten that moment. It is what I remember when I think of us having our second girl, Sarah Nancy three and a half years later and separated from him, our divorce or of my girls and I hearing through a phone call that he had died. I go back to remembering his tears flowing that night.

"Don't you want to wait four more minutes and your baby will be born on Easter?"  the nurse had asked me as I pushed in desperation. "No!" I shouted, realizing Easter falls on a different Sunday each year so out she came!

They gave me a hard-boiled egg since it was Easter, and it sat on a cute bright yellow egg holder. Every year on this day, I see dyed eggs and cellophane grass, baskets, Easter dresses, and baby chicks, and I see my daughter being born. I see my daughters' father crying and I see the possibilities and the struggle. I see my destiny and I say to my girls and their father, "thank you."

Happy Easter!

Sarah Nancy (left), Leila Sandra (center), and me.