It has been a while since I told my story, my family's story. It was 1998 when my parents told me that I would be a big sister...again! I already had one little sister, and to be quite honest, when she was 3 and I was 8, we DID NOT get along. I can say this now because we are best friends, but we both admit that there was true dislike there for a few years. So, when my parents told me that we were adding another one to the mix, I just prayed it was going to be a little brother who I could get along with, but it turns out we had a lot more that we needed to be praying for.
Around that time my dad had accepted another job, and had to uproot his Birmingham-born-and-raised family. Starting a new job meant not having him home quite as often and that was incredibly hard for this daddy's girl, but what I was unaware of was how hard it was on my mom.
My mom - pregnant with a third child, caring for two, spirited, argumentative little girls already and having to figure out our new life in Jackson, MS., which, though it was a mere four hours from Birmingham, seemed like light years. She was also feeling sick with what we now know was so much more than the typical nausea that accompanies pregnancy. She had developed toxemia, and to make matters worse her concerns as a mother during her third pregnancy were not being reassured by her doctors.
I remember one night in particular when her illness had reached a point of complete terror. My sister and I heard my dad coming upstairs. We thought that we were making too much noise and he was coming upstairs to get onto us, but he was coming to get us so up so that he could take my mom to the hospital. We came downstairs with him and sat in their room. I saw my mom on her knees in the bathroom. She could barely stand up. She was in so much pain.
She was finally admitted to the hospital on January 8 and told that her third child would be born that night, six weeks before her due date. I remember sitting in my mom's hospital room with our next door neighbors, who were like grandparents to us, and my actual grandparents, who all kept telling me that it was going to be OK. What was going to be OK? What was wrong? Don't women have babies everyday?
Then, my dad walked in, and this is probably my most vivid memory because it was the moment I realized that nothing about this delivery was normal. My dad, to me, was always this large man. I don't mean large in that he was fat, but he was just a tall, strong man. At 8, I thought he was surely tall and strong enough to play in the NBA. He walked in in scrubs. My dad is an insurance guy so seeing him in scrubs was confusing enough as it was, and then I saw tears in his eyes. This was the first time I had ever seen my hulk of a father shed a tear. And it was the only time I would see him cry until his own father passed away years later.
My mom and sister recovered because both were fighters, and, if I'm being truthful, both were also abundantly blessed and lucky to have made it through. I wasn't able to see my sister for a long time. I knew she existed, but she wasn't living with us. I would send my mom and dad in with a disposable camera so they could take pictures of my new sister and so that I could see what she looked like.
Once she was born, and we were finally out of the woods, I could not have been more excited to have a baby sister - a complete 180 degree change of mind from where I was months before when I found out there was going to be addition to our family. After almost a month, that little fighter, weighing in at only about four pounds came home right before my 9th birthday. And what a celebration that was! We finally had every member of our family home!
Friends brought meals and snack items to my family, nurses would bring me coloring books to the waiting room, people went out of their way to provide for my family. Support. That is the meaning of it all. I want the families there now or in the future, who may find themselves far far away from relatives, or in a financial crisis, or an emotional one to have the support they need to get them through. It takes so much more than medical care and assistance to get an entire family to weather that kind of storm.
Our Sweet Caroline - only a few days old - being held up by my mother's hand
Many years later - one of my favorite pictures of the three of us!
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