It was 32 Years Ago Today!

Yesterday was my brother’s birthday. He turned 32, which makes him four years younger than I am. It is tradition in my family to share stories of a person’s birth on their birthday. Of course, we share the same stories every year. You would think this would get old after 30 years or so, but we are continuously amused by it. Here is my story of my brother’s birth.

I was four years old and pretty content being an only child. Life was pretty good. I had my parents all to myself and both sets of grandparents all to myself. (I was the oldest grandchild on both sides). I had my own room. All my toys were mine, no sharing. I was the center of attention. I was blissfully unaware of my fate.

My father’s parents (Grammie and Grandpa) came down to stay with me during the birth. My mother’s sister also came to stay to help with the baby. I don’t remember my mother going to the hospital but the next morning, Grammie woke me up and said we were going to see my new baby brother! She was excited, so I got excited. We all went to the hospital.

In those days, access to patients rooms must have been more tightly controlled. We had to wait at the nurses station for a nurse to escort us back to my mother’s room. The nurses station was next to the nursery and my Grammie held me up so I could look at all of the new little babies. Then my mother’s nurse came to get us. She was an older woman, very tall, and with a pointy-featured face. She pointed at me and said, "She has to stay here." She bent down to look me in the face and said, "You have germs - you will make the baby sick. Stay here at look at the new babies in the window."

Now I was pissed. Not only did I not get to see my mother, but my Grammie, Grandpa, and aunt were leaving me at the nursery window. My Grammie said, "Don’t be mad, we will be right back." I stood there, folded my arms, and scowled. (Even then, I had a pretty nasty scowl.) When I got bored of scowling (mostly because no one was paying attention), I tried to look at the new babies. But the nursery window was too high! I couldn’t see anything! So, I went back to scowling.

When my brother finally came home and I got to see him (and infect him with my germs), I was very disappointed. He looked nothing like my baby dolls. He was a very ugly baby. He was jaundiced, so he was all yellow. He also had a red rash all over his body and a really pointy head. Plus, we had to share a bedroom until my parents bought a new house about a year later.

It took me a long time to get over his entrance into my perfect world. We get along now, but it was years of sibling rivalry in our house.