Life Story: My Sad and Happy Birthday

But first, a little intro to this new "feature" of my blog. You may remember that I talked about doing this awhile back, but since then I've chickened out many times. I've always been drawn to writing down life stories. I actually interviewed both sets of grandparents and compiled stories for all four of them. It was an awesome experience. I've written down my stories in various random boring forms, but never have I actually tried very hard to work to make it more interesting.

Then I went to a class at the library a few months ago that got me all fired up to try again. And I thought, well, if I posted little articles or essays about different little incidents of my life on my blog, that would give me motivation, and an audience to write for. I figure if I picture you my readers reading this stuff, I may write better. You know? Does that make sense?

So even though it scares me something terrible to post my stories to the blog, I thought I'd at least try it for a bit (maybe twice a month) and see what happens, how it feels and if I continue to freak out about it. (I will be obscuring some details and names of people who might rather not be public on the web, at least I will try.)

Anyway, I figured I'd start with the beginning and so for my first life story post I give you:


My Sad and Happy Birthday

Once upon a time, on the Thursday evening of November 11, 19--, my parents went to the final session of their childbirth classes. At that class, they watched a movie of a baby being born which was something quite new to both of them, this being their first baby and all. While not making her especially nervous, Mom did say that  it must have made her a bit excited and ready because in the middle of the night, her water broke.

But the thing was, she had planned to work another week for BYU’s The Daily Universe student newspaper, and then after that have days and days, weeks even, to plan and prepare for the baby! You see, I was a month early!

When her water broke, Mom said to Dad, “ah, something is happening! I think maybe the baby is coming. I think maybe we should go to the hospital!” Dad said “you’ve just peed your pants I bet, try going back to sleep.” Mom said, “Ah... no... I don’t think so.. I think that yes, we really better go!”

They were living in a small student apartment south of BYU campus and so off they went in the middle of the night to Utah Valley Hospital in Provo Utah to see what was actually going on. A short couple of hours later, and despite the fact that the nurses were not convinced it was really happening, I was born early Friday morning, November 12th.

Mom called her mom, Grandma T and said, “It’s a girl!” She was so excited to get a girl and couldn’t wait to share the news. Grandma said, “You’re joking, right?” Remember, I was a month early, not due until mid December! Mom said, “No, no I’m quite sure there’s a baby here!”

Grandma was waiting to hear from Grandpa’s parents, Grandma Goldie and Grandpa Lem, who were serving an LDS mission in New Mexico. She told Mom that she would give them the news when they called. Grandpa Lem had been sick with blood clots and had recently had surgery down there in New Mexico, but infection had set in and he was not getting better. Grandpa was trying to make arrangements for them to come home as soon as possible, which was why they were waiting for the call.

Later on that afternoon when the phone call came, it was not good news. Grandpa Lem had just passed away. Now both Grandma and Mom would always be sad that they didn't make that phone call sooner so he could know that he had become a great grandfather before he died.

As you can imagine, the day turned out to be quite the bitter sweet one. Mom didn’t know what she was supposed to feel. Happy to have a healthy baby girl, yet sad to have suddenly lost her grandfather. Grandma had planned to come help Mom, but with all the funeral arrangements and things going on, she couldn’t come for several days. That was also a bit disappointing for them both.

But as it turned out, Dad’s mom, Grandma L, was able to come for a few days. This was another surprise to all involved as it wasn’t the normal thing for her to be part of the excitement of birthdays. On that side, I was the 9th grand baby of what would end up being 72 plus (I’m not even sure of the count.) Babies were happening so often that she could barely keep up! But it was nice that she could come be with Mom until Grandma T. could get there.

And that is what happened on the sad and happy day that I was born. For the rest of her life (and she lived a long time!) whenever I would see Great Grandma Goldie, she would say to me, “you are my oldest great grandchild! And you are the one born the day my Lem died.”

About 1 month old

With Dad,  and his dad Grandpa L, and
and HIS dad Great Grandpa Fred (who immigrated
from Switzerland when he was 19 years old)

With Mom and Dad

With Mom, and her dad Grandpa T, and HIS mom
Great Grandma Goldie