Green Eggs & Tears...
One of the hardest things about having a miscarriage aside from the physical pain, was ‘untelling’ the good news. I called my parents first. I can’t even remember how the conversation went. But today I can still remember how daddy sounded. Mom put on her strong voice, daddy’s voice could not be disguised.
I vowed the next time that I got pregnant, I wouldn’t tell anyone until I made it past the day I miscarried, and that would be three whole months.
I didn’t last six whole weeks. I am sure I took a pregnancy test on the first possible day. The results were positive before I missed my period. Three months was a long time to wait to tell my best friend - mom.
We were preparing to move to North Carolina and my parents came to see us one more time before we left Florida. I knew if mom and I had any one-on-one time, I was going to spill the beans. I had to run an errand and I had my mind made up before I grabbed my keys.
In the car, she asked me where we had to go. I told her I needed to go to the bookstore and exchange something. I pulled a receipt out of my purse and handed it to her while I was driving. I said, “I want to make sure I have the correct receipt. What does it say?” She responded, “It says Pregnancy Jour.... pregnancy journal?” I smiled. She asked, “Is this for YOU!?” I said, “Yes”, while giggling. Then we both got gushy and I had to fan my eyes, because we really did have some stops to make.
We did go to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Green Eggs and Ham. Daddy read this story to me a lot when I was little, and always with the same enthusiasm. On the inside I wrote something like “For Granddaddy”.
When I presented daddy with the book, after he realized what it was for and said, “Really?” about five times, he had to excuse himself. He came back to try to talk and had to excuse himself again.
Fast-forward past the years and times he read Green Eggs and Ham to Christopher; last year Christopher read Green Eggs and Ham to Granddaddy. It’s a long book as it is, add to that a first grader reading the story. Daddy sat listening and after Christopher was finally done, daddy excused himself.
Here’s the thing.... a picture IS worth a thousand words, or in this case 412 and moments like these are priceless.