December 11, 2019

It doesn’t seem like 47 years since we welcomed our first child into the world! I know it’s a cliché but that was a day I will never forget. I got to experience an especially long labor—more than twenty hours, and that was after the actual labor pains began. He was born on a Monday. On the Saturday evening prior, which was the 9th, we’d gone to a Christmas party held by my husband’s employer of the day.

Shortly after we returned home to our apartment after the party, my water broke. Very early Sunday morning we went to the hospital, and because my water had broken, they kept me in. It was a long haul for all three of us. I recall that when they were wheeling me into the delivery room, I looked at David and said, in all sincerity, “I’ve changed my mind. Let’s go home.”

Of course, all the pain and worry became as nothing once I held my baby in my arms. I was just 18 years old, and I got serious attitude from some of the nursing staff. That didn’t matter, either. We had our baby, and that was all that counted.

We were in the hospital for a few days, because Christopher needed to have a blood transfusion, as a result of his jaundice. We left the hospital on Christmas Eve—like I said, a long haul.

In these modern times, when it comes to labor and delivery, things are done completely differently than what I knew. I have no opinion on whether that’s better or worse. In my mind, it’s only different.

I do find it interesting that my oldest will be 50 in just three years. Although, to be honest, I already answer, when asked, that I don’t actually have any children—I do, however have two grandparents.

As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time looking at the social media postings of family, and that includes my daughter-in-law (our son doesn’t do social media). Both she and my son adore their first grandson, and from the pictures and videos I get to see, the love affair is mutual. I didn’t have to explain to them that grandparents and grandchildren are natural allies against a common foe. That was something they’d figured out on their own.

The “quick job” of updating our living room is proving to be not quite so quick as previously advertised. But this task has brought about a surprising change. For more than twenty years, we’ve had a very large indoor yucca. Large as in 8-plus-feet tall. One year, we didn’t have a Christmas tree, so I put some garland on the Yucca and called it done. This plant was a gift to us from our second daughter and when we first got it—in a two inch pot—it sat on top of our old television (not a cabinet model, but the kind common after those, a large bulky set that sits on a table kind of model. The top of the TV was flat, several inches wide and made a nice shelf and that is where the yucca sat.

At some point or other David adopted that plant as his own and began to feed it Miracle Grow. It went from a two-inch pot to a ten and then a fifteen. We got a new Television with no top shelf and had to put the yucca on a small table. Then a larger table. And then, finally, in a pot on the floor. The final current pot it inhabited is 24 inches in diameter and 20 inches tall. The plant was by this point a tree, one with two main trunks. And up until yesterday, it was David’s pride and joy.

Yesterday, he cut the two trunks, and each of the girls is going to take one “shoot” (I don’t know what you can actually call the pieces; they’re about 5 feet tall each) and plant it—he says they will eventually grow roots if they’re kept in soil and kept moist. We’ll see.

Our living room is strangely bare without that tree. David had decided that he wanted a completely new look after so many years. “That tree has dominated the room for a very long time. I just decided it was time for a change.”

It is, indeed. We need to buy curtains for the window that tree sat in front of, now. And since there will be new flooring and new paint…. there should be new furniture, too. Don’t you think?

I can hardly wait to see what we eventually come up with.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
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