For Lily And Jason

A year ago tonight my daughter Lily was in labor with Owen, my grandson.
She labored so long and hard. She labored for days and nights. She danced with her husband, the father of my grandson, swaying and letting that baby settle down into where he needed to be to be born. They would have done a C-section days before but my daughter said, "No thank-you," and she did the work and was patient and strong and the family was there with her.


Mean Aunt Jessie was there. She and I slept for awhile together on a bed hardly big enough for one. "I am spooning my mother!" she said and yes, she was, and it was the only way we'd fit and oh, we must have gotten at least four or five moments of sleep.


Uncle Hank stayed in the waiting area unless he was walking around with us, all around the damn circle of the labor floor, past this room and that and when he wasn't walking with us, he was reading or sleeping and keeping watch over our little flock by night.


Mr. and Mrs. Moon cuddled and waited. Mr. Moon went out and bought a rotisserie chicken for us to eat and he gave his daughter encouragement. Mrs. Moon tried to, as well, but at one point, after I had given Lily my best advice she said, "This is not helping," and I knew she was right and I shut up. She had it covered, my Lily. She knew what she was doing.

I am thinking of all of this tonight- how we all gathered together to help Lily and Jason bring Owen into the world and how May was sick and couldn't be there and how she cried on the phone and how none of us had any idea of what it all meant and how much Owen would change our lives. I am thinking of Kathleen bringing us muffins and how time was that sort of spacey place and how much we loved our nurses and mostly, how brave my daughter was, how strong. How when they told her she could push, she was an Amazon of a woman, giving birth to the universe, giving birth to the boy, giving birth to the joy of the child who is Owen.

We had no idea. But we knew, all of us, that something of the most amazing sort was happening and we couldn't stop smiling, even as we walked the hallways, even as we drank the coffee, even as we tried to sleep on the single bed, even as the day turned into night and then day again, even as my daughter labored with her husband's arms around her and I had an inkling of what sort or parents they would be but we didn't know for sure.

And now a year later, we do. We know what sort of parents they are- which is the very best kind, and we know what sort of boy Owen is, which is the most amazing kind, and we know what sort of grandparents and aunts and uncles we will be, which is the most loving kind and one year ago tonight, there we were, hoping for the best, not even beginning to know what the best could be.

Lily and Jason- I am in awe of you.

And I love you so much....Mom.