CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 12
NOTES FROM A
GRANDMOTHER: S
DIARY
April 30. I speak today at a theology conference on "Masculinity and Femininity Under God," attempting to show how the question is primarily a theological one for the Christian, not a trivial question of physiology, or merely sociology ("lifestyle," "changing roles," etc.), politics or pragmatics. It must, like all other created matter, mean something. I wonder who had "ears to hear" (Deut. 29:4)? 1 fly after the conference from Philadelphia to New Orleans where Walt and my daughter Val meet me, he looking handsome but harried, she radiant, great with child.
May 1. The little cottage in the cane fields is a truly happy home, though the work God has given Walt in the two small churches is well designed to put iron into his soul. Not everybody loves everybody else yet!
Today is their first anniversary. I sit on the sofa and watch Val go through her Lamaze exercises for childbirth, coached and assisted by Walt who attended the classes with her. They are breathing exercises, consisting mainly of alternate panting and puffing in certain prescribed rhythms, an excellent means of distracting a woman's attention from her pain. The concepts of masculinity and femininity find lovely expression here-the man cherishing, protecting, helping, caring for the woman who carries his child; the woman responding to him with all her heart, her body heavy with promise, preparing herself to suffer pain. They have all things in readiness: a room, emptied, painted and furnished, a crib ready to receive; tiny clothes in ordered piles, a white eyelet bag to take to the hospital, containing a diaper or two, a diminutive blue shirt (for a boy) and a rosebud-sprigged gown (it might be a girl, though I think not).
May 4. Today is "due date." Hopes high. A few minor aches that might become pains subside, along with our hopes. If only it could be today, Val would be able to be back home from the hospital on Mother's Day and show off her baby to the eager people at church, some of whom seem much more excited than she. And of course the sooner the baby arrives, the longer his grandmother will be able to help before she has to go off to Minnesota.
May 5. Trying to put together a speech for Minnesota is a difficult business when we are all in suspense. "If we could just get this baby we could get down to business and prepare sermons and things," Walt says.
May 7. Trip to the doctor in New Orleans-a fivehour round trip-for Val's regular weekly check up. Everything fine. No progress. That was his dismaying report.
May 9. The Lord of creation knows all about why it seems to us important that the baby come now. Would it throw off the universe if He were to allow this one child to be born today? Is it too much to ask? What does He know that makes it essential that we wait? Such are the questions I was trying to squelch as I walked in the cane field this afternoon, praying. Sovereign Lord, we await thy time. "My times are in thy hand" (Ps. 31:15). Thy will be done, in Earth, in this corner of the Earth, in this young woman, as it is in heaven.
May 12. Every morning I wake with the mockingbirds (and it's a breathtaking concert they perform, beginning at five o'clock in the live oak by my window, chirping, tweeting, whistling, trilling, chipping, warbling, trying out tunes, pulling out different stops) and wonder, Will it be today? This is a question Christians ought to be asking every morning about a very different but much longer-await event. "Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20). I go downstairs and start fixing breakfast. Val appears, fresh as a spring stream, no pains, no signs, no complaints. She is eager for the baby but calm in her trust.
. . . It is noon, and still the mockingbird sings, praising God and it seems, mocking me. I sit at a desk near the air conditioner, writing a speech on "The Requirements of Privilege" which I am to deliver to graduating seniors, knowing well that the greatest thing that can be required of anyone is trust in the living God. I am not meeting that requirement very satisfactorily if I sit and stew over the way He times things.
May 14. At the doctor's office in New Orleans. It is 10:25 A.M., exactly 24 hours since we arrived here for Val's appointment, at which "no progress" was again his report. We drive home, arriving at 10:00 P.M. At 1:15 A.M., Val wakes me. "I'm having them, Mama. Pains every five minutes. I guess we'd better go." Val and Walt are both serene and happy as we drive east. We have clean diapers, a sheet and a pair of freshly boiled scissors in the back of the pickup, just in case. The CB radio is working. As we drive past the cranes, tool shops, tugboats, derricks and welding shops of Morgan City, many pickup trucks are parked outside the barsa world of men who operate on a different set of hours. Diesel Hammers, Offshore Welders, Ocean Systems Diving Service read the signs along the main drag.
Val times her pains with a watch, writes down the intervals and the duration. Three minutes, 5 minutes, 11 minutes, 7 minutes.
"Honey, you're amazing," Walt says. "I love you."
We reach the Huey P. Long Bridge going into New Orleans. The moon shines, a thin sliver with a bright star balanced on its point.
"You all right, honey?" Walt says.
"I'm fine!" Val smiles. She puts her feet in my lap, her head in Walt's. "Praise the Lord, it's happening!" she says.
"You're terrific!"
"But I'm so happy!"
We reach Walt's parents' house. Walt tries the door, finds the chain fastened, but almost at once a light goes on in the bedroom. His mother lets us in. I go to bed, Val and Walt decide to go for a walk. At eight I awaken, find everyone asleep. Oh dear, I think, a false alarm. But soon they waken and I am assured that things are still moving. At 10:00 A.M., Val calls the doctor. "Come on over," he says. So here we are . . .
She comes out of the office, smiling a little wistfully.
"He said to go on home. It could be today, maybe tomorrow, maybe Monday."
The afternoon wears away. Val naps, walks, counts pains and takes a shower. In the evening we go to the hospital.
May 15. 12:40 A.M. I sit in "The Stork Club," the waiting room for expectant fathers. No one else is here. I have just spent 40 minutes spelling Walt in the labor room, massaging, counting seconds to help Val with her breathing routines, listening to the thrilling amplification of the baby's heartbeat on the monitor. "I understand why they told us this would be the hardest work we'd ever do," Val said.
2:00 A.M. I watch as Walt holds her during one of the hard ones, her head thrown back, anguish on her face, she gasping and puffing according to his quiet instructions. "Honey, you're great!" he says. "You're going to make it!"
3:35 A.M. The doctor arrives at the hospital. Walt goes to don the green garb for the delivery room. Now he comes to the waiting room.
"That daughter of yours!" (I see tears on his cheeks) "She's something! Twenty-seven hours, but she's hanging in there." The nurse calls him.
4:15 A.M. Walt comes to the door (I am no longer alone in the waiting room-a young man and his parents-in-law are there) and beckons me to the hall. He hugs me. "It's a boy. Walter Dorman Shepard III. Hear him? Listen! You can hear him cry down the hall. That's him! That's our son!"
A nurse comes down the hall wheeling a cart. There he is, a tiny, determined face with a dimple in the chin (his mother and father have that dimple, and his grandfather Jim Elliot had it too). We follow the nurse to the nursery where she pushes back the curtains so we can watch her weigh and measure him. We go to Val's room and in a few minutes the nurse brings in the living bundle. The room is quiet.
Mother and child.
The father, bending over them both.
Then he reads the beautiful service for the "Churching of Women" from the Prayer Book:
0 Almighty God, we give thee humble thanks for that thou hast been graciously pleased to preserve, through the great pain and peril of childbirth, this woman, thy servant, who desireth now to offer her praises and thanksgiving unto thee . .
Grant, we beseech thee, 0 heavenly Father, that the child of this thy servant may daily increase in wisdom and stature, and grow in thy love and service, until he comes to they eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We all join in the Amen.
The grandmother is thinking also of the lovely words written by Amy Carmichael of India for the children she rescued:
And the grandmother also makes up her mind to try not to talk about this little boy to people who don't ask, and to talk moderately to those who do. But alas, here she is putting it all into words. All? No, she left out quite a lot. And nobody had to read all the way to the end if he didn't want to.