I’ve spent a lot of the last month on “Memory Lane”.  It started on Mother’s Day when I found a faded color photo of myself standing in our front yard under a fully-blossoming cherry tree with a fully-blossomed belly.  That Mother’s Day fifty years ago was the due date of our first child. 

Ten days later, after a big steak dinner, I thought my stomach pains  could be labor and called the doctor. He told us to go to the hospital. We arrived about 10:30 pm.  My labor was long and difficult, but just as I was about to deliver the next morning, Dr. Sexton (yes, that was his name) invited Peter to come into the delivery room. Fathers-in-delivery-rooms was a new practice then.  I think if Peter had time to think about whether he wanted to watch, he would have declined, but he didn’t get any time so he pioneered.

Seth was born at 7:30 a.m. and fifty short years later, I can remember our joy as if it were yesterday.