Recently
I had some funny events in my life brought to my attention. The first three happened
in the same hospital. Twice I was “the patient”. All three times my stepmother,
an employee there, was involved. The other nurse was different each time.
The
first one happened while I was still in high school. Margo (stepmother) took Bonnie,
our niece, and me to where she worked and introduced us to a co-worker. (Let’s
note here that she and our Dad were attempting to adopt our niece and Bonnie
and I are only TEN years younger than she is.)
Margo
introduced all three of us as her daughters but her colleague didn’t react. She
didn’t even twitch when we talked about our family members were coming to town
to celebrate our graduation.
She
finally asked if we were graduating from sixth or seventh grade.
“No,
high school. We’re nearly 20!” (Yes, we were behind and graduated less than a
month before our 20th birthday.)
“You
can’t be Margo’s daughters!”
“Well,
duh. She’s married to our father.”
Then
there’s the time I had surgery. Yes, anesthesia was involved. Margo brought me
to the hospital.
After
I was in the recovery room, a nurse was talking to me and I asked, “Is mom
still here.” Yes, I did ask for mom.
“I
can check. Would you like her to come in?”
I
must have said yes because a short time later Margo was in the room with me.
The
nurse came back. “Is this your mom?”
“Yes.”
“I
thought so. You look like each other.”
Under
the throes of anesthesia, I started laughing uncontrollably. “That’s
impossible. We aren’t related.”
Margo
had to explain she was my stepmother.
The third time, she wasn’t even in the hospital. Understandably, because it was the
middle of the night she’d spent half the night and most of the day with me
while I was in labor with my second child. Now Margo, Jerry, my mother-in-law, and two nieces who’d been with me were all at home in their beds. (One niece
was the one Dad and Margo raised but never managed to adopt. The other one was Jerry’s
niece.)
I
crashed right after delivery and I woke up in an eerily empty room. I assumed
my daughter was in the nursery because I’d been dead to the world.
A
nurse walked in and was surprised to see me awake, but also clearly hesitant to
tell me where my daughter was. Somewhere in her stumbling, tentative rambling,
she managed to mention Bilirubin counts.
I
interrupted her. “So is my daughter single or double-banked?” The poor nurse
nearly dropped her jaw, while I continued, “I’m Margo Westover’s daughter.”
Recognizing
her name, she sighed with relief and had no problem explaining the situation
since I wasn’t going to panic about a high Bilirubin count. After all, I knew
what it was, and how to treat it. I even somewhat expected it. My husband and I
are different blood types. Yes, all five of our children had at least mild
jaundice.
Mostly, I just find it funny that all three
happened in the same hospital and involved the same employee, at least
indirectly.
I
did have another funny exchange with a nurse. This one happened after the birth
of our oldest child.
I
was tending my daughter when a nurse came into talk to me. As he was preparing
to leave, he commented. “There used to be a guy working in Central Sterilizing
with the same last name.”
“I
know. This is his daughter.”
“I
had no idea he was married. How long have you been married?”
I
pointed to the infant in front of me. “Long enough to have her.” She was born a
month before our first anniversary.
Now
for one last exchange.
I
had taken Royce to the eye doctor’s to pick up his new glasses and as we left,
he asked me, “Do I have a grandma?”
Considering
his two biological grandmothers are dead and he never sees Margo, my now
ex-stepmother, the short answer was no, though technically, everyone has
grandparents. His are just dead.
“What
brought that on?”
The
tech who assisted him told him to go back to his grandma.
“I
am not that old.”
He
shrugs. “I have classmates with grandparents about your age.”
Yeah,
I know I’m an older parent, but that’s ridiculous.
Smile.
Make the day a brighter day.
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