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December 11, 2001
It's a little scary when
It's a little scary when the first person really close to you gets pregnant. When Ñaña told me that she and Tony were going to start trying, I felt very young and very old all at once. Old because here was one of my best friends in the whole world deciding to create life, which is clearly something that only grown-up people do. Young because at that moment I felt our four-year age difference with an acuteness that I had never felt it before. I was clearly the ñañita.
The first time I saw her after they decided to 'get started' was when they came up for the Salsa Festival in early September. I kidded her that it was the end of an era, one last weekend of dancing and imbibing before she headed down that one-way street to motherhood. Jason had just returned from his two week vacation in Seattle (which had begun about 36 hours after our relationship did), so it was one of the best all-around weekends in recent memory. The Salsa Festival was terrific, I was so excited that Jason was home, and, if I remember correctly, even the weather was beautiful.
So I wasn't really surprised when, about three weeks later, I got The Call. She left messages on my cell phone and home phone, and I knew instinctively why she was calling. It was thrilling, even for a bystander like me. While we were talking, I did a little backwards-counting in my head trying to figure out when the Tadpole (as s/he is now lovingly called) was conceived so that I could then count forward to a due date. The results took my breath away. I said, "Ñaña, you know I don't mean to pry into your sex life here, but I was just trying to figure out when the baby will be born and, well..."
"That's the really eerie thing," she responded. "We are almost absolutely certain that the baby was conceived on September 11th." The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and unexpectedly, I got choked up. "Oh, Ñaña." was all I could say. "I know," she said, "I know."
At a time like this when I already feel more intensely the preciousness of those I love, the news of this baby is incredibly special. To me, knowing that this baby started on a day when so much was lost makes it all the more so.
Posted by shannon at December 11, 2001 11:09 PM | For related posts: