Spring... and a Baby - reprise

A wrought iron mother wren with a baby at her feet perches on graceful vines encircling a fluted glass vessel. The little vase struck a chord with my mother, and she gave it to me when Tucker was born. Mom loves lilies of the valley, and it was early May, so she filled the vase with a few sprigs from her garden before coming to help out with my new baby. 

 

It was springtime, and the earth had prepared for Tucker’s arrival. In the fuzzy greening of trees, the sunshine glow of forsythia, and the pink clouds of magnolia emerging from gray wood seemingly dead only last week, God was saying – as surely as if He’d hugged me – “Be happy.” And I was. 

 

Lavender lilacs lent their fragrance to the warm, gentle breeze. Tiny sparrows that had passed March in mute pecking swung proudly on twigs and composed melodies. Brown-headed cowbirds chortled bubbling liquid songs, and mourning doves cooed like a mother’s soft soothing. Warblers called from the treetops with trills, chirps, and cheeps. Brother Wind, the woods’ winter alto voice, harmonized with the soprano songbird chorus. Mates were sought.  Nests were readied. My baby was on the way too.  

 

I’d been a poster child for pregnancy, and perhaps, a vexation to my fellow students in Lamaze class. Where Tucker curled tight in the womb, front and center, other mothers waddled cumbersome, expanding on all sides. I felt great, gained little weight, and was eager for birth-day to come.

 

Labor, for me, was a glorious crusade – a good one, without prisoners or weapons. There was blood and pain, but the prize was a baby, and I was well trained for the fight. With the current preference for epidurals, Lamaze has lost favor, but in the early eighties, it was the way to go. It was an invaluable education, and when the contractions began, the pain held no fear. I knew the significance of the sensations at each stage and was ready with a corresponding strategy. As the contractions grew stronger, I pictured my little one, struggling along with me.  Soon we would meet, face to face. 

 

I’d not been aware that I had expectations as far as the sex of the child. Yet, as a girl from a family of girls, I must have felt that this little traveler, so familiar, yet not, would be female. When Doctor Hoffman, the welcoming committee, caught the baby and announced, “He’s a boy, and he’s perfect!” I was surprised.  I was also surprised that this son of a WASP mother was so definitively Italian. I didn’t recognize him as my under-the-heart-in-my-heart companion right away. 

 

He resembled his father, Dave, so thoroughly. Thick black hair was slicked back from his face. His battle down the birth canal showed in in puffy cheeks and pouches under his eyes, like Dave after a long commute. And like Dave, Aunty Cam, Colombo, and his great-grandfather Michael, the baby’s nose was pure Sylvestro, rounded and substantial. 

 

The name “Tucker” is not as unique in this new millennium, but in 1980, it was.  It was round on my tongue, soft as a baby’s kissable cheeks, and the “r” at the end was a cozy burr. There was pride and love in the very utterance of the name, bound as it was to this little boy. 

 

But oh, the fatigue following the eighteen-hour delivery! I had eaten only tea and toast since the contractions began, and after all that hard work – triumphant work! – I was beat. So after snuggles with Tucker, and stitches for me, the nurses spirited him away, and I fell asleep.  

 

At 4:00 AM, I woke in the dark, achingly lonely for my other part, the other heart that had beaten under mine for nine months. The yearning I felt for him was a new kind of pain, and I was keenly aware of the void in my body where once he had been. 

 

Now, he is forty-four, married with two children and living in Switzerland. On this day, the day of his birth, he seems terribly far away as I reminisce about our first meeting so many years ago.

 

When spring comes around with its fuzzy leaves and lilac scents, I can conjure up the feeling of that day when we awaited his birth. As the lilies of the valley push up through the soil, I bury my nose in the clusters of white bells. God is proclaiming, “Be happy,” and I am… but I wish I could hold that little bundle again.