Preview: On the Birth and Death of Angels
(Author’s Note: It has been nearly 16 years since the death of my mother. I think of her daily; talk about her, especially to my children, often. And I dream about her more nights than not. But I have never written about her, or her death, or how she still affects three little lives she left behind. I have avoided it studiously, made excuses, fabricated reasons and well, just plain avoided it. The time has come for me to do this. And so it begins).
On July 20, 1996 my daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Berr, was born. Four days later, her paternal grandmother, Phyllis Schmidt Berr, died.
Rachel’s first day on earth included spending four hours or so in the infant ICU due to some relatively common condition that prevented the doctors from getting a fully audible heartbeat. I watched her scream bloody murder as they attempted to put an IV in her tiny wrist barely an hour after she was born. The doctors told me that her screaming was a good sign, that she was a fighter. I struggled with my emotions as I silently moved back and forth between my wife’s room and the ICU, allowing myself to show concern when with the doctors, forcing myself to smile when with my wife. Information was scant, and I found myself imagining the worst and hoping for the best. A normal reaction, I suppose, but one I was not accustomed to experiencing. Despite the fact that it was the second time in five months that I found myself faced with that sort of circumstance.
While all this was happening, at a hospice care facility a mere 100 miles or so away, my mother lay dying of brain cancer.
On July 20, 1996 my daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Berr, was born. Four days later, her paternal grandmother, Phyllis Schmidt Berr, died.
Rachel’s first day on earth included spending four hours or so in the infant ICU due to some relatively common condition that prevented the doctors from getting a fully audible heartbeat. I watched her scream bloody murder as they attempted to put an IV in her tiny wrist barely an hour after she was born. The doctors told me that her screaming was a good sign, that she was a fighter. I struggled with my emotions as I silently moved back and forth between my wife’s room and the ICU, allowing myself to show concern when with the doctors, forcing myself to smile when with my wife. Information was scant, and I found myself imagining the worst and hoping for the best. A normal reaction, I suppose, but one I was not accustomed to experiencing. Despite the fact that it was the second time in five months that I found myself faced with that sort of circumstance.
While all this was happening, at a hospice care facility a mere 100 miles or so away, my mother lay dying of brain cancer.
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