“Yin and Yang” from ‘Loose Garments’(Still Bill) I do not deal well with transition; it always throws me into an emotional tailspin. And while I surely don’t have a monopoly on this characteristic, or character flaw, I may be a tad more unstable during tumultuous times than most. This is a curious phenomenon considering how far I’ve come intellectually to understand both change and emotion. Since change is life’s only constant, it behooves me to be more accepting; indeed, there’s surely no point in resisting it. I also know emotions don’t necessarily have any moral value and therefore aren’t always aligned with reason and common sense; they’re like children: I can’t just throw them in the trunk, but I can’t let them drive the car either.

By the beginning of September 1982 transition had been building to a crescendo for the past two years. It started with my long term girlfriend’s acceptance of a marriage proposal which meant every morning after that I had to wrap my head around being ‘engaged’. This was followed quickly by becoming a first time homeowner, another identifier that took some getting used to. I’d no sooner adapted to renovating a space that’s mine and calling myself ‘soon to be wed’ when the actual wedding took place. Then I had to grow accustomed to being a married person, even more important, a ‘husband’.

With the honeymoon stage still lingering, the concept of being a spouse was beginning to fit nicely like a fine pair of Italian loafers. Right about then my young bride announced with radiant joy that she was pregnant. Perhaps it was noise from that freight train of fatherhood bearing down which prevented me from hearing the surgeon’s prognosis regarding my mother’s recent procedure.

Dorothy Loretta had just been moved from recovery into a private room when Dr Hardy concluded his postoperative exam and stepped in the corridor to address the family. According to my wife, who was exceptionally close with her mother-in-law, the doctor very specifically stated that with chemotherapy and radiation treatment my mother would have two more years at best. My recollection of this is very spotty. But when I told Louise perhaps she’s the one misremembering, that maybe I was busy at work and not even there, she vividly recalls three specifics after the doctor spoke: twining her arm around my waist, me draping mine over her shoulder pulling us closer, and the baby doing a backflip. Perhaps I did, in fact, just throw that memory and the emotions associated with it in the trunk and slam the lid.

At dawn on the morning of September 10, while I shook pom poms and cheered from the sidelines, the same baby who rattled the womb upon hearing about her grandmother’s short life expectancy was coaxed into this world by a midwife. And whereas my memory of that conversation in the hospital a few days earlier still lies shriveled in some dark, long neglected corner, my recollection of hours spent at the birth center radiates like a crystal chandelier, illuminating everything through its rainbow prisms. The first phone call I’d made early that morning, while the vernix covered baby ravenously gulped from my spent wife, was to my mother’s room at the hospital.

By mid afternoon the resident obstetrician finished his examination of Louise and our new baby and then, after formally recording an excellent state of health for both, sent us home. At about this same time Dr Hardy completed his discharge paperwork for Dorothy Loretta, and my sister closely followed the orderly who wheeled our mother toward the exit. Our daughter, now clean and glowing like porcelain in the late summer light, slept angelically in a new, rear facing infant seat during the twenty minute drive home. Louise, looking content as a climber just returned from Everest’s summit, stared serenely into the twisted rear view mirror at her accomplishment. And our red Volkswagen Beetle was permeated for the first time with the pleasant yeasty scent of a newborn. I’d never witnessed such perfection or felt more present and alive.

When I re-adjusted the rear view after turning off the ignition in our driveway, I finally noticed my sister’s station wagon. Apparently at some point, despite a college town’s Friday afternoon traffic in early September, my sister and mother ended up right behind us on their journey from the hospital. The synchronicity of this may have eluded me at the time due to my mother’s appearance. The same sunlight which set our newborn’s skin aglow moments before now accentuated the oatmeal pallor of Dorothy Loretta’s, and her silver grey hair, typically coiffed in a chic style, fell limp and wispy around her head. Instead of removing cancerous tumors, it looked as though Dr Hardy took everything from my mother that made her vibrant.

Since it would’ve been difficult for Dorothy Loretta to get out of the car, Louise placed our newborn gently in her still seated mother-in-law’s arms. Then, for the first time after leaving the birth center, my daughter’s eyes opened and locked with her grandmother’s. That’s when another transformation came over Dorothy Loretta. After a drawn out sigh that sounded as though it had been waiting to escape for years, my mother looked at Louise and me while radiating an inner peace independent of any doctor’s prognosis. Her disheveled hair and lackluster skin suddenly seemed inconsequential compared with the spiritual wellness illuminating that moment. Dorothy Loretta was shining with refracted light from those rainbow prisms.

Turns out both the surgeon’s and obstetrician’s predictions were pretty much spot on. My mother remained alive for two more years before those treasonous, mutant cells took over enough vital territory she had no choice other than surrender. During that time, however, Dorothy Loretta lived with dignity and even grace, planting metaphorical trees while knowing she’d never rest in their shade. As for my daughter, she continues to enjoy that excellent health the doctor recorded back when her age was measured in minutes.

The earliest similarity between my mother and newborn daughter were those slate blue eyes, and although the baby’s could’ve changed after a few weeks, they never did. Over time more of my daughter’s physical characteristics came to resemble those of Dorothy Loretta, but it wasn’t till decades later, around the time I became a grandfather, I noticed their similarities went way beyond appearances. Sometimes my daughter will make a very subtle movement or gesture; perhaps it’s when the cadence of her voice slightly shifts while addressing my granddaughters; or maybe it’s the brief hesitation as she enters an unfamiliar room. But these fleeting behavioral whispers not only remind me of Dorothy Loretta, they cause me to overwhelmingly feel my mother’s presence; again, my feelings lie outside the jurisdiction of logic and reason.

I can easily write these phenomena off as a trick of the light or better yet my brain’s neurons misfiring as they are prone to do. But then I recall the child’s birth story, especially those curious reactions even in utero to the grandmother she can’t remember; in retrospect it seems their shared genetic material vibrated on a cellular level in recognition of kin. And my daughter’s timing, incidentally, is still impeccable.

Thanks for reading,
Bill Bader

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