Sunday's Messenger by N. Barry Carver (books for new readers txt) 📕

We played hide and seek with a misty fog just after sunrise on Saturday morning as we walked the beach just north of Santa Monica’s pier.

We talked about the lack of work and gazed at a homeless person sleeping on the sand. We spied a small piece of lava that had been sanded by the ocean down to a smooth, pierced bobble. I bent to retrieve it because she could not reach it for herself. Without speaking, we knew we were both thinking of the neck this flotsam would someday adorn.

I couldn’t look her in the eye. How could I? Had I dared, I could not have gone on – it was all such an impossible situation filled with emotion and anxiety.

We strolled for an hour. A circuit on the sand and a portion of the pier – then back home to where cartoons should have been blaring – had there been any worth watching. I made a stew of early summer squash, and we went out for Moose Track Ice Cream. We marked another day off the calendar and went, though uncomfortable, to sleep.

At six A.M. she called me. Something was wrong.

Perhaps the squash had disagreed with her, but she had a cramp in her belly that wouldn’t stop. She’d change positions, and all would be okay... but only for a few minutes. Fearing all the unnamable dreads that people in our position imagine... we headed to the hospital, stopping every two-and-a-quarter-minutes to let the cramping pass.

By seven A.M we knew that it was no abdominal distress... but actually the “emergency” that we had waited so long to endure. By nine she was fully dilated and ready to begin pushing... which she did – every two minutes exactly – for the next six hours and change.

I was never a very happy man. It’s strange to say it, but it’s true. One look at the expression time has carved onto my face, and you’ll recognize despair. Not that my life has been more tragic than others – it hasn’t – but between the real tragedies and the brain chemistry that also allows me whatever creativity I posses... I have been deeply, deeply sad.

I am ashamed to tell you how many things I could not do because I simply could not shake myself out of the gloom of possible failure. I am ashamed to say that I have considered how best to die. I am ashamed to admit that I have often thought myself unworthy even to ask for help.

At 3:05 P.M. on Sunday, June 2nd, I leaned down and kissed you. I said, “John Angelo Carver – welcome to the human race. I will love you every day” and with that I cut you free from your mother – the only woman who ever chose to really love me.

You cried very little but spent the next hour staring at the people and devices in this strange environment as if trying to catalogue all the new things you’d discovered. You looked at me with a thoughtful seeming expression – as if to say, “I recognize the voice... I just can’t place the face.” And I hereby apologize that, one day, you will bear one very much like it. My heart was – and is – so full over this event, that I will never be able to express even one iota of it.

But, my son, if nothing else, understand this: You spoke to me that day too. When I leaned in and said my little speech that I have waited my whole life to say, you caught my eye, took a deep and considered breath and told me something quite profound. I will cherish it until my very last day – which suddenly, I find myself praying, is very far off.

In that unrepeatable language of newborns, you gurgled out a little sound... several syllables from an uncontrolled tongue (much like everything I have ever said). It was a mandate – from whatever grace allowed me to know you – whose words no dictionary will ever capture. I will never stop repaying the debt I incurred at that moment.

To the others crowded around your arrival – it sounded like nothing more than the coo of a contented newborn. To me... it sounded like... hope.

Text: © 2012 Barry Carver
Publication Date: 02-07-2012

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