Try to Keep Quiet

It’s Friday Night College Roommates Zoom Happy Hour. Since I’m back on Keto (and so is Nick, obviously) I settle in at the patio table with my computer, phone, reading glasses and a low-carb Mango spiked seltzer which tastes like sunscreen. Deb, Nance, Beth and I catch up on the news of our week. Beth is enjoying a glorious Kentucky summer with low humidity and perfect temperatures. She hikes three times a day in the acres of woods behind her house. The lightning bugs start blinking at dusk. She and Damon will take the kayaks out on the Kentucky River. People will be bungee jumping off the bridge and I say I’d love to do that. I’d do it in a minute. The other three think that’s crazy.

Nance is excited about her trip to Louisville in August. She and Karl will visit her brother and extended family, squeezing in a visit with Beth while there. Then a trip to LA to see me…and her son, Philip too. 

Deb is preparing to leave for Ireland to shoot her new television series, but is super anxious about leaving her family for four months. Her kids, including Rachel and her new husband Nick, have all been home for the summer, which she has loved even though her house has been crowded and chaotic. She can’t find a moment to herself. But now Rachel is not feeling well.

“I’m really worried about Rachel,” Deb says.

“What are her symptoms, Deb?” Beth asks.

“Really bad congestion in her head and her chest, body aches, a fever. I thought she should go to the doctor, but I really tried to back off and let Rachel and Nick decide on the best way to handle it. It was so hard to stay out of it.” Rachel and Nick are newly married and Deb said she watched them problem-solve as a couple, working together with care and maturity. “But then I couldn’t stand it. I ran to the drug store and bought an oximeter, a thermometer and a bottle of Robitussin.” 

“It’s so hard to not jump in when your baby needs you,” I say.

“It really is. I have to work hard at staying out of Anthony’s stuff.” Nance’s youngest son Anthony, is dealing with a challenging situation in his life. “He calls every day and tells me all about what’s happening and I try to just listen and not give advice. But I worry about him.”

“Of course, Nance,” I say. “You can’t help wanting to ease his burden.”

“I feel that way about my siblings.” Beth is one of ten children and is the sister the others depend on. “My sister, Mary was not feeling well last week, she had this terrible back pain. I thought she should go to the emergency room, but she said she’d be okay. The next morning, she called and said she thought she better go after all.” Beth took her to the hospital where she was diagnosed with Shingles, then brought her home, put her to bed and told her to sleep until she didn’t need to and that she’d take care of everything. 

“You know, this makes me think about my Mom when I was in labor with Chloe,” I say. “She and Grandmom were in the delivery room with us all night long. Mom made it a point to stay out of the way and mostly just sat quietly at the foot of the bed. I know she didn’t want to interfere. But when Nick would leave the room to take a break, she was at my side immediately, wiping my face with a cool washcloth, smoothing my hair back and adjusting the bedding to try to help me get comfortable. When Nick returned, she’d go sit down and wait for the next opportunity.”

“I didn’t know that, Les,” Deb says.

“What a wonderful story. You should write about that in your blog,” Nance says.

“Really,” I say. “I mean, can you imagine? Watching your baby go through labor and not jumping in to push the clueless husband out of the way? Nick would come back in with a coke and a bag of potato chips and stand beside my head crunching loudly while I was trying to get a baby out.”

“Typical,” Deb says.

“Come to think of it, I guess it must have been hard on Grandmom too.” It was difficult to tell because my Grandmom kept her emotions pretty close to the vest. She was one of the most loving and least affectionate people you’d ever meet. She was most comfortable showing her love by writing a check. 

When I’d been admitted to the hospital on a Wednesday afternoon at only one centimeter dilated, we figured it would be a long night. I don’t know who packed the Maternity Hospital Bag but the only contents were two cassette tapes — Dire Straits and Hank Williams, and a deck of our favorite family card game, Skipbo. Perfect time for a tournament. Mom and Grandmom cleared off the rolling hospital table and pulled chairs up to the bed. Mom dealt the cards and Grandmom set the stakes at a quarter for each round.

Even though Skipbo is appropriate for people over the age of seven and requires a bare minimum of knowledge or strategy, both my Mom and my Grandmom were highly competitive at the game. They hated to lose in general. And I was in labor, so the odds were stacked against me. Every few minutes, I would lie back and close my eyes until a contraction passed, then lift my head and look down at the colors and numbers swimming in a blur on the table. Then I’d get my bearings and say, “Okay, whose turn is it?”

Mom won the first two rounds. She’s a shark. Grandmom and I slid our quarters into her pile. The third game was heated. Grandmom had only two cards left in her stock pile. I could tell she was buzzing. Mom couldn’t get any luck this time. After a painful contraction, I hit a good run and played at least a dozen cards in my stock pile, catching up to Grandmom in one play. After a couple more rounds, Grandmom finally played the last card in her stockpile, winning the game. I reached into my pile of quarters and slid one over to her. She stopped it mid-slide, slid it back to me and said tenderly, “You don’t have to pay me.”

Deb, Nance and Beth share in the pleasure of my memory. Later, when I lie in bed trying to fall asleep, I think of Mom there in the delivery room. I realize how much self-control it must have taken for her to sit by quietly all through that long night, to witness her baby in pain. Like her mother before her, Mom is not so good at showing her feelings. But when I think back to that night, her love was expressed clearly. I call her the next morning.

“Mom, I’m writing about the night I was in labor with Chloe. Do you remember much about it?”

“Oh gosh, Leslie,” Mom says. “It was the longest night of my life.” We reminisce about the Skipbo tournament and I tell her my lasting memories are of her taking care of me when Nick stepped out of the room. I don’t thank her or tell her how much that meant to me because it’s just too weird. We don’t do that in my family. 

“Well,” she says with a chuckle. “Nick spent most of his time planning a movie he was going to make of himself when you gave birth.” 

“Ha! That sounds about right!” I say. We laugh and agree that men should never have been allowed into the delivery room in the first place. 

Though our conversation doesn’t go exactly as planned, my picture of Mom is changed. And I vow, from now on to remember the ways in which she showed her love. And the next time I’m tempted to jump in and take over when my baby is hurting, I’ll try to incorporate some of Mom’s strength and restraint.