October of 1996 found me languishing on my side in a hospital bed that had been my home for five weeks, following five whole months on medically mandated home bedrest.
That particular afternoon featured a massive hemorrhage, then an emergency abdominal surgery performed without sufficient anesthesia. The objective was to save my life, and maybe another.
I passed out but eyewitness accounts attest to the lavish loss of blood, splattered across all attending medical staff, bystanders, the floor.
When I woke up I was surprised to find the infant snatched from my belly had also survived – gasping for breath, born too soon, encumbered with too many names because it was all way too much to cope with – but still, alive.
When I took him home from the hospital he was twenty-two inches long and weighed five pounds.
Now that sad little waif of a baby is nearly my height, an autonomous brilliant person just as likely to put on a puppet show as launch conversations about Descartes.
The last week has been a nonstop celebration in honor of the boy, including sushi dinners, tickets for plays and a circus, a trip to London to see the King’s Privy Wardrobe, with random detours for The 39 Steps and Ripley’s, cake, laughter, love.
I’m not allowed to post current photographs but here he is in a younger incarnation – Barcelona 2006:
