Momentous Day

Friday, September 13th, 2002 was a busy day. Not only was I swamped with work in Cubeville from Hell, but I received a series of potentially alarming phone calls.

On Thursday night, I called my father (in hospice in Arizona) to tell him that my sister had gone into labor. We talked for a little while, and then he told me that he loved me and that he would talk to me later. I never spoke to him again.

I got a call from the hospice social worker that he was going downhill rapidly the next morning. It turned out that he told a friend of his that morning that he was "checking out" that day. I kept trying to call him, but he never answered the phone.

My mother and my brother-in-law called almost every hour to give me updates on E. K had swallowed some meconium, and E was having an extremely rough time with labor.

B, a co-worker of mine, brought in baby kitten A into the office for me. I had completely forgotten that we told him that we would take her on the 13th. She was crawling with fleas, and needed shots, so I took her right to the vet after work.

As soon as I got home, there were messages for me to call the hospice (because my father had died) and to call my brother-in-law (because my niece had been born and all were well). We are still convinced that Dad waited for K to be born so that E could carry her to term without that much extra stress. R said that when he held K for the first time, he swore that he saw my father's eyes looking back at him. It's quite possible, since he died within an hour of her birth.

I was in Birmingham, far away from all of them. But, my heart was still broken and elated at the same time.

Six years later and I'm still not sure how to handle the day.