A Cup of Conversation – March 2015

I remember the day Mary’s obstetrician told us the baby was transverse lie breach (hugging mamma high and tight sideways) though we still had time. The due day was a few weeks out and there was no sign of an early delivery, not to worry! Leaving the office, however, the doctor says to me, “Oh, if she does go into labor, waste no time getting her here!”

We’ve always been fortunate to find the really cool places to live here in Southern Oregon, especially when renting. Maybe it was the magic of Mary’s personality which ferreted out all the great gems and charmed the landlord right out the gate. We were living in the earth house, as my wife affectionately refers to the Hobbit-like abode built into rock, about a mile of tight switchbacks straight up a mountain, deep into the Applegate. The earth house was on a hundred acres, a good part of that was landscaped with rows of farmed lavender. Can you smell the fragrance, yet? The thermally efficient house was constructed to be earthquake proof, don’t ask me why, but a true work of art. There was a platform next to the house overlooking a sea of periwinkle blue. There was a king-sized feather bed on the platform shielded from the elements by a huge oak. The owner must have loved sleeping under the stars in the summer when the lavender was in bloom. It was an uber-special property but the best part was the in your face view of what I’m pretty sure was Dutchman’s Peak. It was simply breathtaking in every season. The only downside was it took a long and winding forty-five minutes to get into Jacksonville.

It was 1994, the Fourth of July, and my older brother and his family were up visiting. He was a big city boy so imagine his surprise when he hit the rough, dirt road switchbacks to little brother’s earth house. I can still hear him muttering under his breath the first time his brand new city-pretty virgin Suburban bottomed out in the deeper ruts. Crazy, black-sheep little brother loses his mind all over again… I’m smiling because my brother is the one with the crazy talent and imagination but I always had the nerve. Sometimes it takes a little bit of crazy.

The burgers were on the grill when the big noise came from the kitchen. I heard Mary laugh (of course) and my sister-in-law squeal. There was water on the floor and it wasn’t from the pot on the stove. This is when time slows down like in a Matrix film. All the possible scenarios of what could go wrong were played out in my mind with the soundtrack of the doctor’s last words repeating in a loop. I knew with a full house it would take us a minimum of an hour to get to the hospital. Things began to spin a bit until big brother stepped in. We were on the road in a flash.

I could tell by the doctor’s glare we were deep in the red-zone. We missed the window to turn the almost-born child so it was emergency cesarean or the unthinkable. No choice there! When it takes a birth-team of four, not counting the anesthesiologist, you know it’s trouble. They had to fillet Mary like a summer salmon to get to the baby. Some images are forever burned into the psyche. That day it was the look on the doctor’s face before finally freeing the limp child from Mary’s belly. “Do not let her out of your sight,” my weary wife said after pinching me hard to get my attention. I obeyed…and bruised just a little.

It was a long night in the hospital room. We had passed through the narrow channel separating joy and tragedy. My brother’s expression as I held up our little bundle of girl-joy on the other side of the glass was the same half-grin, half-frown I’d seen countless times growing up right after he’d pull me out of the fires of trouble. I decided then the long drive to the earth house had to go. Not long after that we moved in town to house-sit for friends. The grand historic Orth House was right across the street from the shop and, incidentally, almost certainly haunted, but that’s another story for another day.