Steve's Birthday/A Story from his mother

Last week, when Steve and I were waiting for his second chemo treatment, Steve's mother sent me something to 'entertain me.'  I have reread it over and over....it has done way more than entertain me.  I am so grateful that 'Gammy' took the time to write this story and to send it to me.

 I asked her if I could print it here and share it with you in honor of the day today, Steve's 49th birthday.


My First Born Son by Cynthia Malone

His dad was at sea, so Grandma and her friend, Marion, were at our little duplex apartment awaiting his birth.  During the night Grandma and I heard groans and we both jumped up from bed and met in the hall.  I was in a shortie nightgown which stuck out in front and scared Grandma half to death, but after that shock, she realized that the sounds  were not coming from me, but the couch in the living room where Marion was sleeping.  She was dreaming that SHE was giving birth!  We’ve laughed a lot over that scene.

The next afternoon, I decided it was time for me to go to the hospital.  Grandma and Marion did not know the way, so I drove while they took notes for their return trip without me.  Unfortunately, one of the landmarks was a postal truck parked at a corner.  Funny thing, the truck was not there on their return so they got lost.  I did not know this until later because I was somewhat busy at the hospital walking up and down the halls to move things along.

It wasn’t until the next day that Robert Stephen Malone, Jr. decided to leave the comfort of my womb and enter the outside world.  I remember holding his beautiful, long body in my arms admiring his graceful long fingers and toes and the miracle of being able to hold him close.  When his blue eyes looked into mine, I knew that I was forever connected to this wondrous little human.  I remember writing to his Dad, giving as much detail as possible so he could picture his new son.  It was a time that written descriptions were necessary because we had no digital cameras or email or other quick ways to spread the news.  Though, I’m thinking Grandma might have sent a telegram.  Bob and Manum reminded me at one time that they received a telegram on the ship they were riding during Bop’s short tour as Commander, Third Fleet Manum and Bop were in Seattle for the World’s Fair, and the inauguration of the Seattle space needle.  When the Governor of Washington visited Bop on the ship, the Governor got on the phone and spoke to the Mother of the newborn Stephen.  (Many years later when we lived in Bremerton, across the bay, we went up in the Space Needle in the glass elevator.)

My pregnancy was shared with Doris Dillard’s third pregnancy.  We played bridge constantly with other wives whose husbands were at sea chasing the new fangled space shot sub-orbital flights. We kept our eyes on the television to see what was happening on the launching pad.  Each delay meant one more day that our husbands would be gone.  Other times, we entertained Doris’s other two with MacDonald’s hamburgers.  We ate so many that I cannot stand the sight of the golden arches.  My Dillard namesake was threatening to come before Steve and way too early.  Doris and I would drive to the doctor for her to get shots to keep the over eager baby where she belonged .  When we entered the waiting room, the nurses were confused as to which woman was the patient.  As it turned out, Cindy stayed put for 10 months and was born after Stephen.

The men came home every couple of weeks, and then returned to their positions – John flying his helo, Bob helping his destroyer move through the water.  Bob’s most exciting happening was the picking up of the capsule containing Enos the chimp who had had to come down from the skies early because he had lost his temper and pulled out all his catheters (including his Penis catherer!) Enos’ flight was the flight before John Glenn’s flight into space. Enos obviously, didn’t enjoy his job.  The story went that said chimp would only calm down if Bob was in sight.  When the Captain of the ship was told to pick up this capsule, he was also told to feed Enos bananas.  The Captain called the supply officer who sang into the phone, “Yes We Have No Bananas” promptly putting himself in grave jeopardy since the Captain was lacking a sense of humor.  I have a picture of Bob standing in front of the capsule.  It hangs on the bulletin board in my office.

Just to add spice to the birth, Bob made Lieutenant and we left for Japan about two weeks after the big event.  Bob threw a “wet down” party in our small empty duplex for his new stripes and I went into the other side of the duplex to nurse Steve and rest.  We had packed out by that time and were sleeping on a mattress on the floor.  Steve slept in a car baby bed sometimes and on the mattress at others.  Bob had a great ability to sleep through Steve’s night cries but, being an engineer, jumped up immediately when I stuck a pencil in the fan.  Thus we shared a few days of baby care.

Two weeks old and a traveler, Steve snuggled in his car bed or sometimes on my lap (head at my knees and toes touching my tummy)as we headed off to Alabama.  His first baby shots were part of this trip – given him by Foley’s Dr. Foster (still active as a doctor when we returned in ’78).  A short visit with Grandma and Grandpa and we were off again stopping for ice in Foley while I was nursing.  The guys on the high platform had fun with that.

At a restaurant along the way, we were accosted by a lady who asked how old our baby was.  At the answer of “two weeks” she spent some time berating us for have such a young baby out in a restaurant.  If she had only known.

And then we had to drive through Texas – that huge hunk of land you have to go through to get to California.  Poor meals and dumpy motels did a number on me making it necessary to find innovative ways to heat bottles of formula and to wash cloth diapers.  We tried the new throw away type which looked good until Steve wet right through them.

The next stop was San Diego and the quarters in which Manum and Bop lived.  True to character, Manum had scheduled a dentist appointment for me because “I wouldn’t have the right dental care in Japan.”  I came home with a swollen jaw just in time for the local news photographer to take a picture of the visiting Malones.  I’ve always hated that picture.  Stephen was properly baptized the Navy way on the  USS Prairie (AD-15) with water from the inverted ship’s bell.  Stephen has a painting of the ship moored at a bouy alongside three destroyers.  At this point he was 4 weeks old and ready for shot #2.

We had a good visit (except for the dentist part) and headed north to San Francisco where we were to catch our MATS plane to Japan.  However, there was a little glitch.  Steve was only 5 weeks old.  He couldn’t fly until he was 6 weeks and had had his third shot. So we had the pleasure of a stay in bunk beds in a dormitory for a week (community bathroom down the hall).  On the appointed day, we boarded the plane and made it all the way to Anchorage, Alaska where the engine conked out.  All the families were put in a school bus and driven 75 miles down the road to a motel.  Three hours after arriving we were put back on the bus to return to the airport and took off for Hawaii.

In the Hawaii airport there was a lounge and changing tables in the women’s area which meant, of course, that the men couldn’t assist their wives with the children during our layover. The men’s restroom had no child friendly facilities (as today’s restrooms do) Exhaustion point number 1001.  Back on the plane now to Wake Island somewhat fortified with boxed lunches.  We stopped there long enough to eat another boxed lunch then made our way to Japan.  We could see red flashes out our window as we landed and emergency vehicles below spreading foam on the runways.  As it turned out, the engine was on fire!  The pouring rain didn’t put it out….  Off the plane safely, we met up with the guy Bob was to relieve.  He announced that he had brought 2 cars.  Bob was to go with him and start the relieving process. Steve and I were to go with his wife so I could listen to 2 hours of her complaints as we drove through the rain to Yokosuka.  It turned out that this charming couple were divorced upon returning to the States.  Something about his sleeping with the maid.  Go figure.

Our quarters were not ready yet, so we were ensconced in an interesting hotel.  Every other floor had families.  The other floors had prostitutes.  This made interesting night sounds of drunks calling for “Suzy” and knocking on the wrong (translate that “our”) door.  During the day the children on our floor used to halls for throwing balls against the wall and chasing each other.  This was not their fault – there was nowhere else for them to go.  During our three- week stay there Stephen made a hit with the prostitutes.  We all ate together and they loved chucking him under the chin and admiring his blue eyes.  “Dozo” or “please” was their permission request to look at him and from then to now his nickname.

Once settled in our quarters with some rest, our interesting year in Japan began.  It turned out that Stephen was born on the Emperor’s birthday in the year of the Tiger.  This was auspicious and lucky.  All of Japan celebrated his first birthday with fireworks!  His dad and I  loved going off base and had fun teaching English in a community center in Opama.  I had a coffee group of American and Japanese wives which was wonderful until the Japanese Admiral’s wife decided that we were too friendly and must break up.  Always obedient to authority, the Japanese wives disappeared.  Later, I went searching for the one I was closest to and found her house.  My visit made her very nervous so it was short and I realized how ingrown this obedience was.  The American wives were furious and wanted to rebel, but after my visit, we realized it was hopeless.

During that time, I followed Bob to Hong Kong when the ship made a port visit.  Our good friends, the Murrays (who later lived next to us in Gulf Shores) took care of Steve.  We had such a good time and Stephen was such a sweet baby we decided we ought to have a second child.  And that is the next story.

Remembering

At our wedding in November, we gave out party favors and attached a tag with the painting 'Noon -Rest from Work' by Van Gogh on one side and this poem by Wendell Berry on the other....


Whatever is foreseen in Joy

Must be lived out from day to day
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir (Counterpoint: Washington, D.C., 1998), p.18.

My friend Hughes sent me another Berry poem that I love:

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(Collected Poems)

These are nourishing words as we settle into the 'ten thousand days of work.'  What does a cancer fight laced with a 'sabbath mood' look like, feel like?  

Van Gogh's Noon: Rest from Work (after Millet)

Post Easter Update

Sorry to have been awhile in updating. This last week was full in many ways because we had so much family around. All the children were here, plus my parents and my brother Frank and Co., early in the week. Brother Charlie flew in from Rome to get a look at his bald brother.

Since I've not really been very mobile, our good Priest has brought the Eucharist to the house several times. We were sad to miss All Saints at Easter, but how meaningful to celebrate with our children and family in our home.

This was also a chemo recovery week, and there isn't much good to say about that. I had the infusion last Wednesday and this is the first day that it seems to be getting better. It seems that everyone responds differently to things, and it is a juggling act to find out our rhythm of getting through the chemo. No more is scheduled until next Wednesday.

Thank you again to all of you who have been such ballast for us as we navigate our way along. We really couldn't do it without you.

Brief Wednesday Morning Report

We were back home last night from the hospital after having a stent put in to open a few necessary tunnels in my system. This morning we get to go see Dr. Posey again and find out if all my various levels (especially biliruben..sp.) have fallen into place again. If they have, then we'll have another chemo treatment today. While I don't relish it, we need to get that chemo show on the road.

Melanie's friend Laurie Bestvater sent this poem awhile back. It has made us chuckle today because last night I gave in to one great cancer loss: hair. My oddly shaped skull is now decorated for Easter.

One Art

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.



Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.



Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

Places, and names, and where you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.



I lost my mother’s watch. And look! My last, or

Next-to-last, of three beloved houses went

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.



I lost two cities, lovely ones, And, Vaster,

Some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.



-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!) a disaster.



Elizabeth Bishop

gratitude

We are back at UAB tonight, but just for observation.  Friday's stent procedure did not work so we came in this morning to try a different route.  Steve now looks like he has a gunshot wound right in the middle of his stomach, but the good news is that this stent should work.

We had a nice, quiet weekend with no ER visits and nothing too eventful.  Steve and I worked on Easter baskets yesterday.   I am going a little over the top, filling them in such a way that they just might usurp christmas stockings in their density and girth.  Our priest came in the afternoon, with palms and communion in hand.  I treasure the eucharist in church, but there is something added when the priest breaks the bread and says the prayers and passes the cup right over your own bed.

I really do know that these are not things you ask for.  That we all live our lives to keep heartbreak and sickness and death at bay.  But when it has once put its toe in the door it seems that you might as well let the suffering come all the way in.  Because ironically, in our case,  deep generosity has stepped in with it.  Our priest texts and offers to bring Palm Sunday to us.  Friends bring strawberries and ranunculas and prayer benches.  Another friend harvested our garden this weekend and we ate greens that Steve planted on a day when Steve didn't even know he had cancer.  Steve's boys ( a merry, rowdy group of motorcycle gang friends) came to install smoke detectors and to work on the exterior of our house.

We are so aware of what we don't know about our timeline,  and the other uncertainties that go with this kind of sickness.

But there are a few certainties, and one of them is that we live by gifts...

“Gift is the principle on which the Creator has based human existence; it is the most pervasive, even if little noticed, reality of our lives. We have life itself by others’ gift of procreation, pregnancy and childbirth. We are sustained in life by the good things of nature and by the labour, generosity and society of other human beings. We are educated by the self-giving of our teachers. We are sustained constantly by gifts—love, forgiveness, reconciliation, pleasure. Our whole life is a fabrication of gifts received, and we ourselves contribute our gifts to the lives of others.”  Esther De Waal

Thursday with a slight change in plans

We went in yesterday for chemo, but my blood tests sent up a few red flags. It seems that my bilirubin count was pretty high (I was starting to get a little yellow), indicating some blockage of various parts that should not be blocked. This explained why I have had so little energy and can't keep much food down.
Chemo is postponed again, and tomorrow we go have a stent put in to clear all the passageways and get rid of things that should normally be moving on. This is supposed to make me feel a good bit better, and I will welcome that.

Also, today's landmark: I pulled out a nice clump of hair.

Ironically, my daughter Margaret goes in tomorrow at the same time for a procedure to help her with some stomach troubles. My parents are coming to nurse her through.

If all goes well for me, next Wednesday we'll take a double dose of chemo, while looking for a hat.