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October 10, 2006
the miracle baby
OHIO - Every argument my mother had with the teenage me distilled down to this essence: I blamed her for my having been born, and she blamed me.
"Why the hell did you even have kids? You hate your kids!"
"Believe me, John," Mom would snarl as hurtfully as she could, "All of my children were accidents."
"They know what causes kids, you know. Nicely done."
Variations on that conversation repeated throughout my adolescence. We had it many, many times. My mother was exactly the sort of person who needed to make it clear that your very existence ruined hers, and she never missed an opportunity to remind you.
CUT TO:
INT. BEDROOM — MORNING — 22 YEARS LATER
It's 2006, and Mom has been dead for two decades. My eldest sister reports that she ran into an old friend of the family, Father Carmine, who I remember in name only. When I was very small, priests would come over to our house and conduct some sort of service in our living room, right in front of the piano. I think one of them might have been him.
All these decades later, to my sister's complete shock, he remembered her. The man must be 80 by now, yet he remembered our mother, father, and all the kids by name. He asked about each of us individually. And when it came to the last, he asked, "And how is the miracle baby, John Paul?"
"What." my sister monotones in my imagination.
And then Father Carmine told her about how my mother so desperately wanted a fifth baby, about how they prayed together that she would conceive.
Now, I'm at a loss to explain how a 34 year old mother of four who didn't practice birth control can get pregnant and have it proclaimed miraculous. And I do not care how. Behold the wonder, the splendor, the divine intervention that is me. Behold John, the Miracle Baby!
It didn't take me long to abuse my new status. "Well," I said to my sister pityingly, putting my arm around her. "We wanted children often have a different perspective..."
posted by john at 8:16 AM • permalink