Joshua Mohr - Some Things That Meant the World to Me

And now I'll try to tell you the story that she told me. The story of my birth. The day her life changed and she never forgave me.

My mom and my dad were not married, but lovers. They lived in rural Minnesota. Summer of 1976. On a commune. They lived with about forty other people. My mom was a classical pianist. An amazing classical pianist. She was nineteen years old. Getting ready to study music in college. I don't know where. She never told me that part. The point is she had a gift, and her piano playing was the thing she loved the most in the entire world.

The day I was born, they played gin rummy on the commune. My mom felt her first contraction. She said, "He's coming," because they knew I was a boy, and my dad went and got her suitcase and pulled the car up to the house, and he helped her into the car. They drove to the hospital. While they drove, he said, "We still haven't picked a name," and she said, "We've narrowed it down to three. We'll know which one is right once we see him," and he said, "I love you," and she said, "I love you, too," and they drove to another town in rural Minnesota, to the tiny hospital. He helped her inside. He went to park the car. He came in to meet her. She was in some pain, now "What does it feel like?" he said, and she said, "You don't want to know," and the nurse said, "You haven't seen nothing yet, honey," and my mom forced herself to smile, but she didn't want to smile. My dad stayed right with her. Nurses smearing my mom's belly with an ointment and huddling around a monitor. Nurses pointing at the monitor. Nurses whispering to each other while pointing at the monitor. One nurse saying, "Go get him," and the other nurse ran out of the room, and my mom said, "Is something wrong?" and the nurse said, "Don't you worry," but she was worrying, she'd seen the panic on their faces and she grabbed my dad's hand and said, "Tell me everything's going to be okay," and he said, "I promise everything is going to be okay," and the other nurse came back with the doctor. They huddled around the monitor. Pointing and whispering. My mom and my dad holding hands. More whispering. The doctor said, "Your baby is backwards," because my feet were facing down like landing gear, and my mom said, "Is he safe?" and the doctor said, "He's got the umbilical cord twisted around his head and we're worried it might slip around his neck," and my mom said, "Oh, my god," and my dad said, "What can you do?" and the doctor said, "We're going to perform a C-section," and my mom said, "Oh, my god," and the doctor said, "We do this all the time. Nothing to worry about," and he left again to get ready for the surgery. The nurses left, too, one of them telling my parents they'd be right back. My mom said, "I'm scared," and my dad said, "I'm here." The next minutes had somehow cut themselves up into years. My parents held hands and kept saying, "I love you," and my dad smoothed her hair back and promised that everything was going to be all right, that he wouldn't let anything happen to her, and one of the nurses came back in and showed my mom a piece of paper, and the nurse said, "Is this your blood type?" and my mom said, "Yes. AB negative," and the nurse frowned and left the room again. My parents fought through the agonizing creep of time. My mom said, "Will you tell me a joke?" and my dad racked his brain to think of anything besides his girlfriend, his boy, the C-section, but he couldn't think of anything, and she said, "Please tell me a joke," and he said, "Did you hear about the pirate movie?" and she shook her head, and he was just about to tell her the punch line when the doctor and the two nurses came back in. The doctor said, "There's a situation," and my dad said, "What?" and the doctor said, "We don't have any AB negative, and we need blood to perform a C-section." My dad said, "How can you not have her blood type?" and the doctor said, "We've already dispatched an ambulance to St. Paul. It will be back as fast as humanly possible," and my mom bawled, and my dad said, "What do we do until then?" and the doctor said, "We make sure the baby doesn't start coming out," and the nurses shut my mom's legs and one of them said, "She's almost fully dilated, Doctor," and the contractions, an onslaught of pain, not even coming in waves anymore, but a pummeling of violent sensation. My mom crying so hard. My dad crying, too. My mom saying, "I'm going to die," and my dad saying, "You are not going to die," and my mom saying, "Our baby is going to die," and my dad saying, "Our baby is not going to die," and my mom saying, "Let's pick a name," and he said, "Now?" and she said, "Now," and they said all three names and talked about what they liked and disliked about each, and they picked my name.

Three hours later. My mom screaming. Sobbing. Three hours of her body being fully dilated and trying to push the baby out, but the nurses kept the baby inside. My mom thinking that this was so much pain, too much pain, and that she must be dying. She said, "Good bye. I love you," and my dad said, "You are not going to die." Three hours later and my mom asked my dad, "What about the pirate joke?" and he said, "What?" and she said, "What's the punch line?" and he said, "The movie is rated AAArrrr!" and she said, "I love you," and she closed her eyes and didn't say anything and my dad thought she'd died. He pounded the side of the bed, but the nurse said, "She only passed out," and my mom didn't wake up again until after the C-section was over. The blood made it from St. Paul. The doctor cut her belly and yanked me out and we were both alive, and my parents were so happy, so relieved. Hours later, my mom fed me and my dad sat next to us, and my mom said, "My hands feel weird," and he said, "I'll get the doctor," but it wasn't for weeks of this buzzing in her hands, weeks of her fingers being clumsy on the piano that she went and saw a specialist who said, "You have rheumatoid arthritis," and my mom said, "I'm only nineteen," and the specialist said, "Body trauma," because she'd told him about my birth. The specialist said, "Trauma can trigger rheumatoid," and my mom said, "Well, what can I do?" and he said, "We'll do our best to relieve any discomfort," but this was the seventies, the decade where hospitals didn't stock AB negative blood, and they couldn't do much for her arthritis. She spent hours at the piano. Her fingers throbbing. She'd play for so long she'd cry, but she never played right. Hitting the wrong notes. Her timing off. The specialist gave her painkillers. She took a lot of painkillers. She was always taking painkillers and trying to play the piano, and my dad would say, "Snap out of it!" and she'd say, "I love the piano," and he'd say, "You love him, too," pointing at me, and my dad would say, "Get your head together," because he was frustrated with all her crying and painkillers and awful concerts. And everything floated out of my mom's head, everything except the knowledge that she'd never be a concert pianist and that knowledge was like a splinter rammed under the skin, the knowledge made her take more painkillers and drink tcha-bliss and shove my dad out of her life, and she was stuck with me, and I was the thing that had ruined it all. Maybe I was the splinter: this breathing crying whining eating burping puking pissing shitting splinter that reminded her of everything she'd lost.

So she'd come in my room. Sometimes every night of the week, depending on how much pain she was in. She'd come in and say, "You destroyed my entire life," and I'd say, "How did I ruin your life?" I think I always asked because I couldn't believe she really blamed me. But she did. She does. Still. She's somewhere right this second blaming every flickering misfortune of her entire life on me.

This is the nightmare I have, the one I didn't want to tell you about earlier. Except in the nightmare, I am not inside of her, I am standing where my dad did. We are in the hospital room, waiting for the blood, and I am standing there watching my mom endure the agony, watching her whelp and scream and cry, and there is nothing I can do to help her. I stand there, totally powerless. In the dream I say, "I'm sorry I ruined your life," and she says, "Why did you do it?" and I say, "I didn't do it on purpose," and she says, "All you had to do was come out headfirst and this never would have happened," and I say, "I didn't have any control over that," and she says, "It's all your fault," and I say, "Please don't say that," and she says, "Everything is your fault," and I say; "I'm so sorry," and I say, "I'm so sorry," and I say, "I'm so sorry," and I say, "I'm so sorry;" and then she shuts her eves and they never open up again, the only eyes that open are mine as the dream makes me panic and sit up in bed, my heart hitting the bones of my ribcage, in a frenzy like an asphyxiating fish.