A Baby Is God's Opinion Life Should Go On
by E. Noel Preston, M.D. 
email: whuffodat@hotmail.com

   My eldest daughter Caroline had her first baby two weeks ago. Amazingly, she had Susan and me over for dinner this past Thursday. Caroline looked splendid, her baby, Grace, was adorable, and Cole, the proud father, looked a bit stunned but very, very happy. After dinner, Caroline showed me some drawings in a little note pad her mother had given her after the baby was born.
   It was one of those note pads pharmaceutical companies are always giving out with their name and brand of penicillin emblazoned across the top, and one of my nurses had given it to Caroline when she was ten years old. I had been doing a well baby checkup on one of her sisters and Caroline had been sitting, politely bored, out in the waiting room. The nurse gave Caroline a pencil and some crayons and suggested she draw something while she was waiting.
   And now, more than 20 years later, I was astonished to see what Caroline had drawn so long ago. There were pictures of Laura and Noelle playing school teacher, and baby Erin in her crib, and their mother buying groceries. And there was a picture of me - a slender young man with rosy cheeks, a smiling face, and a white coat, looking at a cheerful baby lying on my examining table. In every picture, everyone looked so happy and peaceful - and innocent.
   Where have the years gone, and where did everyone go? Less than ten years after Caroline captured those tranquil moments, their mother and I divorced and life was hugely different. The girls are married now, with homes and children of their own. Birthdays and holidays no longer occur on a particular day, but are spread out over several. The girls visit their husbands' families, their mother, me, and their friends, all at different times. This year Susan and I are having Christmas Eve dinner with Caroline and Cole and Grace at Laura and David's house, Christmas Day with Susan's son Robert, and the Saturday after Christmas I'm having brunch at my house with Noelle and Erin and their children and husbands. Old arguments about vacations and thermostats, curfews and credit cards, have retreated into the distance. The human spirit has an amazing ability to heal, to put the bad times behind, and to remember the good.
   I remember my mother and father fought almost all the time. Margaret Mead taught that no strife lasted long in societies that enjoyed unlimited sex and unlimited food, but she never met my family. Mom and Dad put the funk in dysfunctional, and sometimes the tension and hostility and anger was so dense I had to leave the house, even as an adult husband and father, to get away from it. But I have to strain to remember specific unpleasantries. I know they disagreed often, but my overall memories of childhood are generally favorable. One of my favorite memories is after yet another argument, my father telling my mother, "Jo, you're a tough old bitch, but I love you anyway." I told a psychiatrist friend of mine once about their frequent arguments and he said "Who knows? Maybe it was foreplay."
   And so I find those innocent drawings of ten-year-old Caroline's impressions of her family very comforting. Maybe we did some things right after all - but I still hope things turn out better for baby Grace. Thank you, Caroline. A baby is God's opinion life should go on. I had forgotten how good ours once was.

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E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553.

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