A few weeks ago we got to reminisce (in person) about those days at Stanford, a time when our circle of concern was small and each moment of life was packed with joy and meaning.
The setting was familiar. The context was not. It was just me, Lisa, and Abby in Palo Alto. It was a similar time of year: temperature in the 70’s, college football was in full swing, our kids were in school, and grandma was in charge at home. This time, though, there was no uncertainty to our trip--other than the question of which restaurants to visit (and even then, we had already put our “favorite” Palo Alto eating establishments on the itinerary).
Lisa, Abigail, and I returned to Palo Alto in September for a weekend trip. We went under the guise of attending a NICU reunion that is held each year on the “Dean’s Lawn” at Stanford. I use the word “guise” primarily because the NICU reunion was really our “excuse” for going--that extra little motivation needed to justify a weekend escape from an otherwise over-programmed and over-committed life; it was our excuse to spend time together with our baby--time we really haven’t spent since leaving Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) last year. Perhaps "spent time” is the wrong choice of words. We’ve spent plenty of time since last year. We just haven’t created enough opportunity to invest our time. And weekends like this are investments of time whose returns compound over time and yield very fruitful returns; they are deposits into the safest investment accounts that result in what every stock broker wishes he could always deliver for his clients: consistent and predictable returns that still yield exponential returns; the one stock that can be both safe and very lucrative.
Lisa and Abby back for a second visit to Leslie Neumarker's English-garden backyard.
We left Orem on a Thursday after work, and returned late that Sunday night. As we left our house, I hugged Emma, our eight year old--the child who used to be our baby; the child whom we figured would forever be our baby before the surprise of Abigail. Emma, a sensitive and affectionate girl, squeezed a little longer than normal. As I loosened my grip around her body, I placed my big “daddy” hands on each side of her face, and without premeditation said, “This goodbye is a lot different from the last time Mom, Abby, and I rushed off to California, isn’t it?”
Just after I asked that rhetorical question to Emma, I suddenly felt like part of me had experienced some type of time-warp back to the past. I felt it again. Though not nearly as intense, I felt a tinge of the emotion that Lisa and I experienced last October when we hurriedly kissed and hugged our children goodbye, as the Life Flight team whisked Mom, Dad, and the encased Abigail out of the NICU at Primary Children’s en route to board a Life Flight to Stanford. Just as smells, music, and sounds can flood a soul with very real and poignant memories bulging with emotion, every time I see a Life Flight helicopter pass overhead (our house lies very near its path between Salt Lake and Utah Valley Regional Medical center), I pause, and part of that emotion returns. I hope that a helicopter always stimulates that emotion. It’s good to pause and remember.
The walls of my throat thickened as I pulled away from Emma. As Lisa we walked through our mudroom and into the garage, I said, as my voice teetered and cracked, “That was hard.”
Lisa and Abby at Stanford
There were several moments that brought back sweet memories during the trip. Another was Lisa nursing Abby on the plane. Abby has been an on-again, off-again nurser, and the in-flight nursing wasn’t much different. She didn’t want to nurse for too long, but I watched with amusement as Lisa patiently endured the following. Abby followed a familiar pattern of latching on, then pulling off and looking up and smiling at Mom while she gurgled out baby speak, trying to carry on a conversation with Mom, as if she were at “afternoon tea,” then latching back on only to pull off a few minutes later, and so forth. The scene caused me to remember those first tenuous days of nursing--the anxiety we felt about whether she would eat enough to gain sufficient weight to be released from the hospital, the challenge of latching on to the breast after a month of being fed by a tube, and the concern that she may, like many heart-patients, never learn to nurse.
Abby has nursed in waves. She has nursed everyday, but sometimes her patience seems to wane, and she opts for the easy approach--the bottle. Other than the occasional two-week hiatus where Abby nurses sufficiently to fill her up, Lisa has dutifully pumped just about everyday since Abby was born. That pump was a good investment, and Lisa has had the patience to consistently use it so that her baby could partake of the "good stuff."
Abby, happy to be at Stanford, tube-and-worry free.
Our trip to the delightful town of Palo Alto was fantastic. We visited the Farmer’s Market, Stanford Campus, and made multiple stops at our favorite Super Market, Andronicos, for a pastry, some cheese, and soup. We spent some time with our gracious host, Leslie Neumarker, with whom we stayed for the three weeks that we were at Stanford. We also spent a day in San Francisco, and rented bikes (mine came equipped with a baby seat) and rode through the Presidio District, like I had done with the kids the November before.
The NICU reunion was what we thought it would be--balloons, punch, cookies, a clown, about 150 people that we hadn't ever met nor probably would ever see again. Unfortunately, no doctors or nurses that we knew were there, nor were there fellow NICU parents from the year before. But that was okay. Our visit wasn't about the reunion. It was about returning to a happy place. Stanford is a happy place for us, just as Primary Children’s will always be. And it is good to return--not only physically but spiritually and mentally.
On a bike ride in the Presidio District in San Francisco
On our way to dinner with Leslie Neumarker
I try to remember a good friend who spent his night with me at Primary Children’s, a friend who had the ware withal to ask questions to doctors that I was in too big a of a fog to ask. I think of a cardiologist who stood up for me, and got the NICU to break their rules and let that friend give my baby a blessing that night when they wouldn’t let me and my “swine flu” near the NICU. I think how grateful I am that the cardiologist was worthy to hold the priesthood, and ready and willing to volunteer to assist.
I try to remember grandparents, who put their lives on hold for four weeks to play parents to our children. I try to remember a social worker at Primary Children’s who arranged for my children to see their sister before she was whisked off to California, and who made the Life Flight staff be patient enough to wait for the kids to have sufficient time with her.
I try to remember NICU parents, who struggled with far greater trials than we faced, who reached out to us, and were kind and solicitous. I try to remember the admissions clerk at Lucile Packard, a man I referred to as the benevolent “Steve,” who volunteered an hour a day after worke to spend time with a four year-old, terminally ill girl, whose parents weren’t able to visit all that often. I try to remember when I think about Steve how good, despite its many evils, this world still is.
I try to remember the pediatric heart surgeons at Primary Children’s who had the humility to send Abby elsewhere, as I think of a neighbor of Abby’s in the CVICU whose first surgeon in Phoenix wasn’t so humble, and whose first surgery was botched just prior to him being shipped to Stanford for someone else to clean up the mess. I try to remember the United States Air Force who volunteered to fly that baby from Phoenix in a cargo plan because the life support equipment to which he was attached was so extensive that the baby couldn’t possibly be transported with Life Flight. I try to remember how lucky I am to live in a country that values life enough to do such things, and that spends so much money to save babies.
I try to remember what it was like to travel through so much uncertainty in those early hours and days following Abby’s birth, and yet to feel so much peace. I try to remember leaving Timpanogos Hospital to update our kids on Abigail‘s condition, wondering if I would get “the call” from Lisa, telling me that Abby hadn’t made it.
I try to remember myself sitting alone in the cafeteria of Primary Children’s, and for the first time a long time completely and unequivocally surrendering to God, telling him that I would accept and embrace with any outcome. And interestingly, I really meant it. There was no superficiality nor contrivance to that statement--there was no “sense of duty” to compel me to say that God, or no “this-is-how-I-should-feel-so-I-better-say it” feeling. I try to remember how liberating that was, how much peace that gave me, and how much happiness that brought me.
Sadly, I too often forget all of that. And so every once in a while, when a birthday rolls around, or a Life Flight helicopter soars overhead, something tells me to remember. And whenever I do, I feel happy. Happy Birthday, baby Abigail.
