How to become famous - March 26, 1969

How to become famous - March 26, 1969

                

                The year before I turned thirty, when Donna was twenty-eight, we were in the Burger King restaurant in McLean Virginia on the evening of March 25. We were munching fast-food and watching the stream of D.C. commuters circling I-495 around what was called Tyson’s Corner when Donna said, “I think I just got a labor pain.”

                At home we counted the minutes between contractions, until finally, at 10 PM we took off, heading fifteen miles North, then East, on I-495, to Bethesda Naval Hospital. At this time Donna's pains were what I would call fierce. I felt especially helpless. I tried to comfort her but nothing helped. Having the baby was the only relief and we both prayed that it would happen soon.

We rushed into the hospital, where the doctor on duty examined Donna. He told us that Donna was not sufficiently dilated and could not be admitted. We got back into the car and drove home. A few more hours of continued pain and closer contractions sent us back to the hospital. Another examination. She still wasn’t dilated enough and the doctor suggested that we return home again. We begged him to let us stay and finally he gave in.

They put us into a small room where Donna continued to suffer and I did nothing except look on in horror.  Finally as morning came everyone convinced me to go home. I would like to think that I protested, but the fact is that I ended up at home where I slept until mid afternoon.

There was no word from the hospital. Stupid as it sounds, I must have assumed that no news was good news because when I got back to the hospital around 4 PM. I recall a feeling that the worst had to be over and all was well. Most likely they just forgot to call me.

So I rushed in and inquired and they told me that my wife had given birth to a boy. Just as I breathed a sigh of relief the nurse said, “What was your name again?”

“Winchester,” I said.

She looked at her colleague. “She had a boy didn’t she?”

The colleague said, “I think.”

 “Are you sure?” I said, “I don’t care what it is, I just want to know if she had the baby, if she is OK.”

The two of them then marched back through a set of double doors, presumably to check. But they didn’t return anytime soon so I inquired to another nurse. That nurse went back through the same doors and finally they all came back and told me that Donna had not given birth as yet.

This convinced me that she must now be dead. She could not possibly have lived this long through the kind of pain she had endured last evening. I asked them to please go back again and be certain that they had the right person. They assured me that they did and that the birth had not happened as yet. I could not see her they told me, as the baby was coming soon. I don’t remember the next few hours except that I called the grandparents and told them everything was O.K. and I would call them soon. I was convinced that all was not well, but I again felt powerless to help.

It was almost two hours later that they came out to tell me that Donna gave birth to a girl. They were sure this time.  They told me that I could go in to see her.

I stood next to Donna in the hall as she lay on one of those moveable beds with wheels. I held her hand, hugged her and told her over and over how great she was. It was one of those rare and wonderful times when I felt alive and authentic without any distraction. I was completely overwhelmed by this accomplishment of hers.

I had to admit that I always had some doubt that a real baby would result from all of this. But apparently here it was, a miracle, and true, and alive and healthy and it was all her doing. I felt an overwhelming admiration for Donna which I could only name as love, but it wasn’t the usual kind where you look at someone and love them because you like how you think they see you. This was different. I was honestly so in awe of her, her alone, that she had actually done this – made a beautiful living creature out of nothing really, and she did it all by herself. 

                Moments later I was standing on the bare tile floor in a corridor of the Naval Hospital’s newborn unit peering through a large window into the nursery. On the other side of the glass was my daughter, now an hour old. It was my first look at her. I had always thought that I wanted a boy as my first child. Part of the infatuation that D and I held for each other in our early years included a fantasy about our first child. He would be a boy and we would name him John David. It was an endearing thought for me. I would play football with John David. Donna and I would love him so. He would be beautiful, better than me, with Donna’s good looks. In other words, he would be like her. Except that the first second that I looked at my daughter I knew instantly that I didn't want a boy, any boy. It was this child, this girl that I wanted, that I had always wanted and would ever want.

                As for wanting things, in my previous world, usually when you got it, it was eventually not that important, often unfulfilling.

Not this.

Often, in the former world, you might want more, or you just wanted something to shout about, or you didn’t want it after all once you got it, or you got tired of it. Not this. A voice inside said, “This is what you wanted – and here she is. This is forever”

It was a lightning bolt of clarity and truth that struck me at the exact moment I looked through that glass at my first child lying in the tiny bassinet, still, peaceful, and yet frighteningly fragile. It was as if my heart itself was doing the looking. As I stood there staring, I was shocked by an immediate awareness of two things. First was the distinct and powerful idea that I would protect this child with my life. I was twenty-nine years old and I had never, even remotely, approached a situation where I could imagine sacrificing my life for someone else. That was something for the movies and I had no reason to expect that it would ever be any different. But now, I understood what it meant to be willing to give your own life for someone else. I remember standing there and looking at my child and thinking these words, "My God, I would give my life for her to live; I will do anything to keep her from harm." I couldn’t bear to leave. I wanted to stay and make certain that she was safe. It was a strange thought for me. Although I had never seriously had such a thought before, the feeling was not at all vague. The emotion was very clear and real.

                The second thought that formed in my mind was of my own mother and father. As I stood alone, the only new father in an empty hallway, looking into the nursery, my thoughts actually went back to a specific but simple incident that occurred when they were visiting me at college. I had asked my parents, a month or so previous, to bring my old baseball glove the next time they came to see me. In the meantime I had borrowed a new glove from a friend and long since forgotten my original request. Finally when my father visited and handed me the glove I remembered only this childlike thought, “Gee, you remembered. I forgot all about this. Why, how, do you always remember?”

Now suddenly, I knew how and why parents always remembered. I hope that I hugged my mother and father that day when they handed me the baseball glove and I hope I said I love you. But I probably didn’t make a big deal about it for on that day at my college I still didn’t get it when it came to love between a parent and child. I knew nothing about a father or mother’s constant thought about their child’s well being. 

And so it was, so often where my parents were concerned, I would say something in passing, request a favor or express a wish and if not the very next day then shortly thereafter they would show up with the very thing I had talked about. It always made me feel so good that these people cared so much about me that they answered even my forgotten prayers. During much of my childhood I thought that their response to matters such as this, while it made me happy, was rather peculiar. It was much a part of the large trust and love for my parents that as a young man grew within me.

Mealtime was another example. If there was just one piece of food remaining, I always got it. There was a specific piece of beefsteak called the tenderloin that everyone raved about as the best piece. I always got that. I never protested, but I honestly thought to myself, I wonder why I always get the tenderloin? I didn’t understand the whole thing. And now at age twenty-nine I finally understood - in an instant.  I remember thinking as I looked again a my newborn daughter, and feeling my brain swirl with nothing but thoughts of her well-being - So that was it I thought, ... so that was what that was all about, with my parents, why I always got the tenderloin. 

And yes, I would soon become my old self again, but for this moment I knew that I had learned so much, so much that I never known before. Did others know this? It must be the secret to life, I thought.  

I've been trying to remember it ever since.