Birthday Blog

At this moment 21 years ago, I was sitting in bed with my feet propped up, too hot and too pregnant to have any hope of finding comfort for more than a few minutes at a time.

I’d worked a full day, even though I was three days past my due date. Congress had just concluded its televised hearings on the Iran-Contra guns-for-hostages scandal, and I’d spent the last few months watching and reporting on each session. I sat in bed with a clear view of what I’d just finished, and no idea of when my next act would begin or what that would mean.

Well, I thought I had a clue. I’d read every book I could get my hands on. Peer wisdom had to come from my older sister, the mother of two. I’d been the first to marry among my core group of girl friends, and now I was breaking new ground yet again.

The experience was different for my husband. He had two children from his first marriage, so although this would be our first child together, he did have perspective that I did not. Still, I had prepared myself as well as any woman could. And in a few hours, it would totally be out of my hands.

What an idiot. As if I truly could ever been prepared for what August 19, 1987 would mean to me. As if all my preparation could create a perfect life for my baby, providing protection from all life’s vagaries and challenges, all the triumphs and the hurts, the abundance of love and the losses.

There is no way I could have known what it would be like to raise this child or the sibling that was to follow, or to predict that ultimately I would raise them as a widow, 180 degrees from the life I had planned for them.

Today I celebrate my son’s 21st birthday. I cannot express the depth of my pride in the man he’s become, and the gratitude I feel in my blessing.

And although he would object loudly and vociferously to my saying this, He Is Perfect.