Welcome To The World, Gabriel

(This was written June 17.)

My son called, yesterday early evening.

As soon as he said the words, “I’m calling to tell you…” I burst into tears.

I think I sounded like a donkey.

My son laughed. My daughter in law, Paula, called from near the phone: “Hi sweetie!”

I cried and did not attempt words.

I had already spent the day thanking God profusely, out loud, because Lewis got a clean bill of health, whereas I had somehow imagined he was gravely ill.

“I never saw such a perfect blood test on a cat,” the vet, Nubia, said.

So I was already saying “Thank you God,” almost ceaselessly, yesterday, June 16.

“He’s perfect,” my son said, his voice trilling with joy.

He was born right on his due date, at the public hospital in Granada: My grandson, Gabriel.

We all got instructions to shower off any potential perfume, make our way to La Zubia, Carmen would drive us to the hospital. Clara (my daughter in Law’s sister) in Dílar, me in Dúrcal.

I became Fred Flintstone, all thumbs, no coordination, running in circles, Yabba Dabba Doo!!

“Bus stop, Dúrcal.”

Walk.

No, no, this was not right. No bus any time soon.

9:30?

Taxi!

No taxi station in Dúrcal. (But I knew this already. aargh.)

Called Rosana, who is an actual angel. She sent me taxi GPS, or so I thought. My mind was de-patterning from overwhelm.

“Walk. Remember, what Jeremy said about the dots.” I heard Carmen was cooking. Or bringing food. And I called my son: “Honey, what are you craving? “Fruit? Cookies? There is a small supermarket open. I have nothing for you! Oh no. In New York, I would be able to lunge to a flower deli, and get red carpet kind of flowers in five minutes—New York, a city that conceals your ADHD for you, for decades…” You buy flowers in the same sort of swoosh that you get into a taxi…. and they’re wrapped up…”

Oh why do I never plan these things?

Enter local supermarket, quiet at closing time.

Piled sugary things none of us really eat into arms, no capacity to get basket. On top of pile, place four bottles of kombucha, the kids love kombucha. Two roll off and explode. Kphoooosh. Kpoooosh.

“Mazel Tov!” I hear my father call out. (That’s for Jewish weddings, yes—but broken glass, in general, in for example India, and China means transformation, major life change, clearing out old energy.)

The lovely girl saw the tears in my eyes as she came with a dustpan saying “No to preocupes.”

Then the OCD kicked in. I had the thought. “I’m not meeting my grandson with this terrible handbag.”

Entered the lady store, asked woman at counter which one, let her pick between two women’s handbags.

One, she said, was “every day—” the other, some other word I didn’t know. I picked the other. I mean she did—I let her pick.

This all took about 4 minutes flat. She congratulated me, and smiled.

Then I was standing in a field of sorts, outside Dúrcal, as the sky turned dusty pink and blue. No taxi station. Clara was calling me. “Are you in the hospital? We’re 10 minutes away.”

I heard Rosana’s voice: “I’m coming, stay there.”

She was in her running clothes. I got in the car, with my shopping bags.

It soon became clear she was driving me all the way to Granada. (20-25 mins.)

What could I say? The crushing sense of gratitude. (Rosana is my landlady, and new friend.)

In the hospital, my son appears across the vast floor and I run to hug him.

Rosana insists on waiting in her car. (Only Carmen and I are officially approved, after hours, but Clara, my daughter in law’s sister, was “snuck in.”) My son and I speak of taxis and not wanting her to wait but Rosana is Spanish.

I am a devoted student of what this means, in different situations.

”Go on,” she says, with a sparkling smile. “I’ll be in the car. Take your time. Enjoy your grandson.”

Upstairs, the room is glowing soft pink light, and Gabriel is in Carmen’s arms, then, in my arms.

He was so peaceful, struggling to open his dark brown eyes, moving his perfect tiny fingers.

The mind grasps what it can. A human being, who is new, and here, and ours.

Clara is filming, Paula is smiling, my son is telling me about the birth. I had reassured Paula that there are these breaks between contractions, that it’s not like in the movies where they only show the hard part. Nobody remembers—the body doesn’t keep it.

'“Yes,” she said at the time, “I can do anything for 60 seconds.”

Well, she didn’t get much in the way of breaks. Almost none, and those that came, vanishingly short. I feel I often mislead by way of invented positivism.

“It was a rough birth,” I text a friend later, “but mother and son were respected, and are doing great.”

He’s so serene, like an old soul.

Paula’s grandparents call on the video phone, and I hear them talk about 4 kilos. (8.8 lbs!)

It must have been an hour by the time I walk toward Rosana’s car, and she is standing outside the car, smiling. I have exhausted myself from so many apologies in this life, but she lets me know so that I believe her, that no apology is necessary. What is this country, where nobody is stressed or irritated or resentful? Waiting an hour in a parking lot for a woman you rented an apartment to a week ago?

“You would do the same for me,” she said, holding my shoulders.

I nodded.

This is true.

Paula’s wishes are for no photos of Gabriel to be published online, but mother, son and father are home and resting comfortably.

A friend took this photo of my father Barry proudly teaching Jeremy Spanish when he was five.

And we still have the notebook.