Waiting Room

 

Waiting Room

I’m 24 and lying in a hospital bed in Houston, Missouri. It’s a cold winter evening, December 31, 1994, and the KC Chiefs fight to win a playoff game on the TV somewhere in the hospital. Everyone who is not currently with me is gathered around, watching the game, a distraction from their enthusiasm and nervousness. Everyone—all of my family, all of my husband’s family—are at the hospital, awaiting the birth of the first grandbaby. The soon-to-be grandparents (my mom and dad, his mom and dad) have all arrived to bear witness and celebrate this momentous occasion. On the family farm, my siblings, soon-to-be aunts and uncles, play Scrabble, Spades, and Bridge while waiting for the next morning when I will bring the newborn baby girl to join the family fun. Half a state away, soon-to-be great grandparents, aunts, and uncles pray and wait for the phone call to come. The first thing I

remember the nurse saying when I arrived at the hospital that evening after my water broke is that the baby has a full head of hair. Alone in labor, I am surrounded by family and prayers and love. The father of the child is in the room with me as is my mom. I have no qualm about the support, love, and place my baby will have in the extended families. Four and a half hours after I arrive at the hospital, I give birth to a beautiful, fairy-wood brown eyed daughter, Alexia Devin. Euphoric, her dad rushes into the waiting room, having missed the Chiefs beat the Raiders, and announces her much anticipated arrival to all of the family gathered together waiting. The next morning, we place this beloved December baby in a red Christmas stocking, the very one her dad had been put in after his birth, and take photos to commemorate her birth and her place in the generations of Rinehart, Cunningham, Crawford, Kellhofer, Johnson families.

 

    I’m 27 and lying in a hospital bed in Columbia, Missouri. It’s a hot summer day, July 2, 1998, and my parents are driving the curvy, hilly roads through the Ozark Mountains on the way to greet their next grandchild. After only one hour of labor, I feel a desire to push, but the nurses say to wait for the doctor. I can’t, I moan. I’m glad that my husband’s parents have arrived, and as I begin to push, he remains by my side while they accompany three- and a half-year Lexi on a grand tour of the hospital. Alone in the labor, I am still surrounded by family, prayers, and love. After only five minutes, I give birth to a beautiful, brown eyed firecracker daughter, Alaina Beth, and her dad rushes out to collect his parents and Lexi to meet the newest, much-loved daughter who brings sparkles of sunshine and joy into the family. The next day, I bake an apple pie for our journey to Kansas City to stay with his parents for Fourth of July weekend, and the next weekend, we travel to the family farm as the family (including great-grandparents) celebrates her birth and her place in the generations of Rinehart, Cunningham, Crawford, Kellhofer, Johnson families.

 

The girls grew up under the wings of the shadow of family and extended family and are rooted in love and prayers from all the generations before. As adolescents and teenagers, they went through their parent’s divorce as well as relocating 17 hours away from family, and as young women, have experienced other loss and grief and heartbreak as well as many blessings, opportunities, and extraordinary experiences. Whether they are 20 hours away, a whole country away or an hour away, they always know where they come from and the strong foundation of family and love they can always count on. 

I’m 50 and sitting alone in my home in Melbourne, Florida. It’s a fairly cool autumn evening, September 27, 2021, and I’m waiting for a text message from my youngest daughter who is lying in a local hospital. Alone in labor, her boyfriend is next to her, and I hope she knows how much love and how many prayers she has surrounding her right now. Because of too many losses, there are no great-grandparents on our side of this new family. Because of the pandemic, only one person is allowed in the room with her. Because of covid-19 and its variants, the hospital only allows visitors from 7am to 9pm, so there is no waiting at the hospital tonight to greet the newest family member. But a sister and niece plan to fly in to visit and help sometime soon. Lexi and I wait, only minutes away, to meet David James. No matter what, I will see him and welcome him into the family. But should I keep a distance? Should I not “take your unvaccinated self” near him, as some people have thrown at me in shame or scare-tactics during the past week? Whatever the answer, we will find a way to honor his birth and his place in the generations of Rinehart, Cunningham, Crawford, Kellhofer, Johnson, and Pearson families.

On September 28, 2021, I walk into the waiting room of Holmes Regional Medical Center’s Birthing Room and spy Lexi. She’s checked in and settled into the corner where she plans to wait for me to visit. Davey’s parents also arrive around the same time, but they elect to return later. I wish we could all greet the new baby together. I am the first visitor to see Alaina and DJ, and I’m so excited. I take the elevator up the stairs to the large, airconditioned waiting room where I check in with the security officer. Masks are required in the building, so of course everyone I see has them on, though no one, medical staff included, is wearing a surgical mask. He checks my ID and scans for weapons. Then, he asks me to stand close to the small camera and remove my mask. He snaps my photo, and I put my mask back on. Because of Covid-19 protocols, only one visitor is allowed in the room with the mother and newborn, and right now Davey, the dad, is there. I text my daughter that I’m ready, and she texts back that Davey is on his way. The security guard instructs me to return downstairs to the small, all-glass waiting room that is crowded and heated from the sun shining through the windows.

“Why,” I ask him, “it’ll only be a minute before we trade out.”

“Because of Covid,” he responds.

“I don’t understand,” I say, gesturing to the completely empty and large waiting area.

“You might expose the room to covid.”

I scoff, reminding him that I just removed my mask for the photo ID (as does every single visitor). “I’m not trying to argue, and I’ll do what you request,” I say. “I’m just trying to understand logically.” After all, you are standing in front of every single visitor when he/she removes the mask every time all day long, so you pose more of a risk combined. I walk towards the elevator, and he tags along.

“I don’t think you’re trying to argue. It’s just the hospital policy, and if I let you stay up here, I’ll lose my job.”

“I’m going down. I don’t want that. I just don’t understand how I am safer down in that overheated tiny space crowded in with all those other people than up here in the spacious, air-conditioned empty room.”

“I’ve been a security guard for all types of people and places, and I agree. I’ve never seen anything like this before, but it’s what I have to do.”

I smile and wave goodbye as the elevator door closes. I talk to Lexi for less than a minute before Davey arrives, wondering where I am and why Laina has to be left alone for even a few minutes. We give Davey a hug. “Thank you for being there for Laina last night,” I say as I grip the vase of flowers and giftbag that I have for Laina. I return to the fourth floor where the security guard is taking a photo of a maskless man. I wait over six feet away while he finishes and escorts him into the maternity suite. The guard again swipes me, looking for weapons, before finally allowing me to enter the sacred space and see my daughter and new grandson, my first grandbaby. When I find her room, two nurses are talking to her and checking her vitals. I wait in the doorway, unsure of the proper procedure. I wish so much that Lexi can come up at the same time, so that all three of us can be together for this momentous occasion, but only one visitor is permitted in the room at a time even though two or more medical personnel are authorized to crowd the room. Nothing makes sense!

They see me and beckon me in, and I am in awe as I glance at DJ all swaddled up in a blanket, lying in the crib. He has a hat on, and his face, while bruised around the mouth, is not scrunched up like many newborns, even with a natural delivery. I lightly brush my finger on his soft cheek. He’s adorable and precious, and I already love him so much. 

One nurse leaves while the other one hands Laina the feeding chart, instructing her to keep track of when the baby breastfeeds. After reviewing everything with Laina, the nurse says she’s going to chance waking up the baby and go ahead with his checkup now. I’m standing near the crib, and I watch as the nurse listens to his heartbeat. She bends over, placing the stethoscope on his chest, breathing directly towards his face. Even standing to the side and even through our  masks, I can smell her foul breath. How many patients have you been exposed to in the past day? Week? He’s defenseless and has no protective mask.

When she removes the blanket to check him, he stirs and cries briefly. I count his fingers and toes, and as I do, he grasps my finger, holding it with his tiny hand. My heart melts. She finishes her exam, swaddles the newborn again, lays him on Laina’s lap, and leaves the room.

Finally, I talk to my daughter and hear her birth story, her fears and pain, her wonder and joy, her power and strength. Connection, bonding, spending time together over the delight of her newborn son. I snap photos to commemorate the moment. Lexi Facetimes me, and for a few moments, the three of us pause, coming together the only way we can on this special day under the pandemic protocols.

I take my turn holding the cherished newborn, though at 7 pounds and 11 ounces he’s tiny and light. I return him to his mama, and we continue our conversation. Forty-five minutes after I arrive, he gives a cry, and Alaina instantly begins to breastfeed him. I’m so proud of her and of the amazing mother that she already, instinctually, is.

When I am finally back down in the tiny, hot, overcrowded waiting room, Lexi takes her turn to greet him and visit her sister. I head back home because Davey is bringing food for Laina soon, so after Lexi, he will spend the rest of the day in the room with mama and baby. The dad is the one visitor allowed in the room anytime, as long as no other visitors are there. Though after nine that evening, my daughter will Facetime with me to tell me that she and DJ will be spending the night alone in the hospital since Davey has to return home to take care of their dogs. Lexi or I will stay with you, I suggest, but alas only the father is allowed in the hospital after nine. Also, even if we watch the dogs for him, there’s no place in the tiny room for him to sleep except an uncomfortable chair next to the hospital bed and crib, crammed in the back corner of the room. No new mother should have to stay in the hospital alone. What an isolated, dystopian society in which to give birth. 

But I hold onto those few moments in the hospital when the three of us were together to celebrate DJ and his birth, welcoming him to the world and to his place in the generations of Rinehart, Cunningham, Crawford, Kellhofer, Johnson, and Pearson families.

One month photo gallery:

Six Years

Dear UD,

                Six years, 72 months, 2190 days ago, we lost you.

 

Six years, 72 months, 2190 days without you here on this earth with us.

 

Six years, 72 months, 2190 days of no phone calls, conversations, creative collaborations with you.

 

It’s been six years since we heard your voice, your laugh, your love for us.

 

You’re not here with us anymore. There’s nothing else to say (except everything).

 

Uncle David, I could tell you about how scared we’ve been the past few weeks with Uncle Bob in the hospital, having had emergency surgery within a week after getting his first dose of Moderna, one of the Covid-19 vaccines, having continued complications since then.

 

Terrified. Triggered. Traumatized from shock and concern. Still praying for his full recovery. From that paralysis, there’s nothing else to say (except everything).

 

I could tell you how ugly some people have been lately. One friend bombarding me with popular media news articles after finding out that I’m waiting to do some real medical and scientific research before deciding about the vaccine for myself, harassing and name-calling me (apparently, I’m in an anti-vaxxer cult, though I don’t remember signing up for it) for simply waiting, wanting to do my own valid and credible research (you know, the type of database research that I require of my composition students) rather than relying on popular media to tell me what to do or God forbid social media telling me how to live. One entitled, older white male acting all condescending like I’m a fly on the wall at the restaurant he manages, a fly that he’ll just try to swat away with no thought because he doesn’t care and will just throw me away. A Facebook administrator censoring my honest post about the negative experience, trying to throw away my voice, my words. Another privileged, older white male “throwing his penis around” to show how powerful he is while throwing everyone else to the wolves…

 

And out in the larger community and world, the headlines are just as ugly—mass shootings, white supremacist cop sentenced while another black girl shot and killed, terrible covid-19 mutations, pieces of the Earth’s mantle (our planet) being exposed in Maryland…

But I could also tell you how beautiful some people (and headlines) are. Bado Church still praying for the Crawhams, for Uncle Bob. One friend inviting me to Zumba in the park and then her community pool. Another friend treating me to a lovely dinner. Sisters calling to check on me. Nieces and daughters coming to visit for spring break, for Easter, for Taco Tuesday. Amazing conversations with new friends…

 

Or I could tell you how much we still miss mom. How much we want to call mom and talk to her, every day, every moment. It’s been just over two years now, and there are still no words. There’s nothing else to say (except everything).

 

Elizabeth Bishop begins her poem “One Art”with these lines:

 

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

 

She advises us to “Lose something every day” and catalogues small objects, names, places, land until the last stanza when she moves to the loss of a person and concludes with this:

 

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 

Losing, loss, grieving, mourning…if it is an art to develop, I’ve sure had a lot of practice with it in the past six years, UD. And while I see the irony and life lesson in Bishop’s poem, I also see the pain and anguish in the parenthetical note. We don’t want to “Write it” because that makes it real and that means we’re facing it, and it’s over. All the never agains live in that parenthetical space—

 

Six years, 72 months, 2190 days to “master” the “art” of losing you, to get used to the new normal, to grow forward in life. What I’ve learned is that part of that process IS writing it, acknowledging the loss, remembering all the good, honoring you (and mom) and all you both taught us, and passing it all along to others. UD, both you and mom—your life, your love, your time on this earth—it mattered. It matters, and it will be remembered. Six years or sixty, six hundred years or more…as long as there are Crawhams walking the earth. You will be remembered. Mom will be remembered. All of those we lost will be remembered.

                                                                       Love, Rach

Spring Fever 2021

Dear UD,

I miss spring in Missouri—smiling daffodils, green green grass, tiny buds on limbs, morel mushrooms hunts, crocuses popping up out of the ground even with a light dusting of snow, earthworms wiggling away from hungry robins and blue jays, bird nests speckled with tiny eggs, chick hatchlings chirping, box turtles just out of hibernation, freshly tilled gardens planted with rows of spinach and green onions and carrots, quick spring showers that leave mud and puddles, asparagus sprigs standing proudly ready to pick and eat....the beauty of spring teeming with life, yes, I miss it so.

 

                But more than anything, I miss Mom, miss Dad, miss you, miss the me I was then, miss the family unity, miss what passed for normal just six years ago.

 

                Grief changes us. It rips us apart and puts us back together like a Humpty Dumpty that could never be put right again.

 

                Uncle David, I don’t know how you did it—you, mom, and Uncle Bob. You were all in your late twenties when you lost your mom, and then in your forties when you lost your dad. I remember your lament of “we’re orphans now. We’re orphans now” at Grandpa Bruce’s funeral. I didn’t understand anything then. Not at all. No one can at all…until it happens. But now. Now, I need your guidance and wisdom. How did you do it? How did you all process and handle that grief and still move forward with life and love and living? How did you all still keep the family together and make it seem so easy? I don’t know how we’re supposed to do it without you and mom. Or is that your secret? That you had each other? The three of you together could face anything. Well, the three of you and God. Having a relationship with God—is that your secret?

I have siblings I love and am close to. I have God. We still even have Uncle Bob (Thank God). But nothing’s the same now. Nothing is okay without you all. Nothing. It’s been six years since we lost you and Dad and two years since we lost mom, and it still hurts so much. I still reach for the phone all the time to call mom, call you. I still ache to hear mom’s voice, your voice, again. I still have a hole in my heart where I am missing mom.

 

America gives us three days to grieve. What a joke. Grief is a never-ending monster of heavy aches and overwhelming sadness. After three days, people tell us to move on, stay busy, get back to life and living. After a year or two, they tell us to let go of the old or previous pain, that it has nothing to do with anything happening in life now. What they don’t realize is that we ARE moving on, staying busy, living, and even moving forward because there’s no other choice; however, the pain is ever present, ever there, ever impacting everything everything everything that happens in life from that moment on. Yes, the pain ebbs and flows. The wound scars over. The bruise fades. Time dulls the ache, and memories, old and new, fill the hole in our hearts to a certain extent. However, the pain NEVER goes completely away, and there’s not a second when we don’t see and feel that grief. Because moving forward means a new normal, a new life, a new self. It means living in the shadow of what used to be and will never be again, not on this earth.

 

There are times when living is lighter again, fun again, happy again, and there are still times, will always be times, when the grief encompasses us and all we do. Today is your special day, UD, and so I feel both happy and sad. Happy that we had you in our lives, happy for all the memories and all that we learned from you, happy that you lived and loved once upon a time on this earth and we got to share part of that journey with you. At the same time, I am still so sad without you here with us.

 

Moving forward also means remembering and honoring what was and the people who were such a vital part of our story. Filling our hearts and lives with reminiscent moments. Like seeing a full moon and knowing mom is looking down and smiling. Or searching for signs of spring just like mom and you, UD. Or celebrating birthdays with traditions and recipes passed on from generation to generation.

 

Which brings us back to you. Happy birthday, Uncle David. Thank you for all that you were and are in our lives.

 

Love, Rach