After Pancake

After Pancake was born and the Commander was ready to see people, I went down to the waiting room to get my in-laws and my mother. The nurses were going to let all three of them come in at once even though that put us over limit for number of guests in a labor and delivery room.

I got to the room and only my in-laws were in there.

"He's here." I told them.

Both of them were also waiting to hear that everything was okay with both their daughter and their first grandson.

I told them that the could see for themselves.

"Where's my mom?" I asked.

My father-in-law told me that she went to call her husband.

I decided not to wait for her and took my in-laws down to the room.

Once we got in there, I left them with the Commander and went looking for my Mom.

She was standing in the waiting room. A look of relief passed over her face as she saw me.

"Is he here?" she asked.

"Yep. Let's go see him."

We started walking down the hallway. There was an unintentional silence between us.

She finally broke the silence.

"I'm so sorry that your father isn't here to see this."

I couldn't even respond. I just shrugged my shoulders and continued walking.

What would have it been like? How would he reacted this time? When the Chicken was born, he kept himself at arm's length. More of a spectator than an active participant of my family.

I couldn't blame him. It was where our relationship was at.

I can't even imagine what it would have been like to experience this birth with him.

Mostly because it probably wouldn't have happened at all if he was still with us.

His death was the trigger for us to bring Pancake into this world.

He would have been excited.

He would have been proud.

And he would have loved the fact that we named him after both my father and my grandfather.

I guess that will have to be good enough.

VW