I was 21 the winter of 1972. I was a full time college student, a full time wife, a part time Dunkin’ Donuts employee, a soon-to be first time mom and it could have been me instead of Prissy who said to Scarlett in Gone With the Wind, “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’babies.”

And yet. . . on February 14th I was going to have a baby no matter what I did or didn’t know. I knew with absolute certainty that the baby would come on the 14th because when my obstetrician had said,  “Congratulations, you’re pregnant!” he had also told me “and your due date is February 14th.”  Which explains why, when I told all my professors the first of February that I would not be in class on the 14th because I was having my baby that day, they made the obvious inquiries: c-section? induction?  And when I explained that no, but my doctor said the due date is the 14th so I will need all of my assignments ahead of time and will probably be out for several days, the kinder ones smiled and the rest snickered and some even laughed out loud.

While I had never really been a die-hard chocoholic, as this Valentine’s Day drew near I drooled over the elaborate boxes of chocolates on display in all of the stores and cursed my doctor who had threatened me within an inch of my life if I gained more than 20 pounds – seriously, this was the dark ages. But I made it known to my husband that I would be expecting one of those super large boxes of confectionery delights to show up in my hospital room in a few days and I didn’t care if he had to spend the rent money to buy it. I oh-so-carefully selected a Valentine’s Day card for him and wrote a sentimental and loving note in it since I didn’t want to be outdone by what he was sure to give me along with my candy: a beautiful expression of his gratitude, appreciation and love for the mother of his new little baby boy or girl.

Valentine’s Day arrived. I refused to go to class because how could I show up there still pregnant???  Later in the day we sat at our kitchen table. I gave him my card and he swallowed hard. “I haven’t gotten you anything yet. I thought I would bring it to the hospital.” “That’s okay,” I said barely choking  back the tears. “I wasn’t expecting anything.”  But of course I was. I was expecting a baby. And he hadn’t come. I was devastated. No baby and no candy.  Could this day get any worse?

Lucky for me (and my GPA), we didn’t have to wait long. Paul worked the night shift and it was early in the morning that I called him to come home.  “I think this is it.” Suffice it to say that my labor was long, it was hard and that due to the fact that I was pretty heavily drugged because that’s the way it was back then, I don’t clearly remember much about it. What I do remember is that I had no idea what was happening, I was scared, I was hurting and they kept chasing Paul out of the room. I also remember that eventually I reached the point where I could not go on.  Only later would we learn that this stage of labor is called transition and that it is marked by irritability and a need for emotional support. And that’s pretty much the way it went down.

And so it went for the next hour.

Finally they took me to the delivery room. My 68 year old mother and my 21 year old husband (who they almost didn’t let onto the maternity ward because the nurses thought he did not meet the requirements of being 14 or older) sat together in the waiting room. Finally the doctor left the delivery room to give them the news. He looked from the old woman to the boy and unsure of any of the relationships asked, “Are you with Mrs. Abbott?” They assured him they were.  “You have a son,” he told my husband.  It was February 16th. The day my life changed forever.

That evening Paul came during visiting hours (yes, even husbands were restricted to visiting hours) carrying a big, heart-shaped box filled with chocolates. This had worked out well for him. “It’s so good you waited to have the baby because now all the Valentine Candy is 50% off!!!!”  Of course, by then the craving was gone and I don’t think I ate even one. But the nurses were grateful.

Thus began our journey into the world of parenting.  And from that day to this I have lived with the revelation that if I knew nothing about birthing babies, I knew even less about parenting. Thank you to my first born for loving me anyway and for not giving up on us.  And thanks for some great stories.

I think he was about six when I heard him explaining to his younger sister that when she grew up and got married she would have a different last name. She found this slightly alarming. “What would my name be?”  “Well, if you married George Norcross then you would be Tabi Norcross.”  “What if I married Mark Kennerly?”  “Well, then. . .  he said with only a hint of hesitation.  “I guess you would be  Mark Norcross.” Say what?

He was maybe four when he yelled to me from the bathroom one day. “MOM, COME IN HERE NOW!!”  I came running, expecting there to be a crisis of unimaginable severity. “What’s wrong???”  “There is a spider in here!!!” By now he was hyperventilating. And don’t ask me why I asked him the next question or what I expected his answer to be, but certainly not what it was.  “What kind of spider is it?”  I asked him as though he would know or it would make any difference to either of us. “I don’t know,” he replied.  “But I think it’s Jewish.”  I have no idea.

He might have been ten the year we gave him the book The Hobbit for a Christmas present. He read all that day and into the night, caught up in the world of hobbits and elves and dwarves and the Shire. It must have been after midnight when he came out of his room into the living room in tears. “What’s wrong?” we asked him.  “Nobody told me that Fili and Kili died,” he sobbed.  “Who thought it was a good idea to give a little kid a book like that for a present?!”  But thus began his life long love of Tolkien.

He was 19 when he joined the Marine Corps. The recruiter came to the house to pick him up and watching him get in that car and drive away was one of the hardest things I had ever done.  His stories from the Corps are legendary, but those are his to tell. . . and he does it so much better.

Except for this one:  He graduated from Boot Camp on July 4th in Paris Island, South Carolina.  The entire family traveled to his graduation.  What we didn’t know is what we carried  with us.

After graduation he returned home with us for a few days and then we sent him off to North Carolina for more training. A few days later we got a call on our answering machine:  “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Abbott.  This is Captain _____ (I no longer remember his name.)  I am calling in regards to your son. Private Abbott  is under quarantine at the Base Hospital with the Chicken Pox. And our experience is that in situations such as these, the Marine recovers better at home.”  Translation:  the Marine needs his mommy.

And then there is this. It was  his fifth birthday. We lived in an apartment which was on the second and third floor of an old house, and I had sent him up to my bedroom on the third floor to retrieve my hair dryer (the kind that was sort of a portable model of a salon hair dryer.) As usual his sister, two years younger than he, was on his heels because she followed him everywhere. He was lugging the dryer down the stairs and explaining to her:  “Tabi, it’s a good thing Mom sent me to get this hair dryer because it is so heavy that only a five year old can carry it.” She nodded, appropriately impressed with his new-found five-year-old strength. “And,” he continued, “sin is so heavy that only Jesus can carry that.”  From the mouths of babes.

My first born is now himself a good husband and father and leader of men. 

It has been a long road from that day 43 years ago when I finally got my Valentine Card, my box of candy, and my son.  And not always an easy one for either of us. But Jesus has carried us and our sin and His grace to this place where we are today, and for that I am grateful. And I am blessed to be his mother.

Happy Birthday, Sean!  And have some Valentine candy.  It’s half off!