In 1993, I gave birth to my third son, Hollis. Despite the phrase “elderly gravida” (I was 38) at the top of my hospital chart, I had an easy time. Driving to his six-week checkup, I cheerfully sang an old gospel tune to the infant buckled in the back. It was Easter season, and I felt one with any bird singing in raucous, noisy joy.
At the checkup, I was shocked by the doctor’s summary: Our son had lost weight. The doctor heard a heart murmur, and her office would make an appointment with a cardiologist that afternoon. We had to decide whether to have surgery on his constricted aorta right away or wait until he was bigger and stronger. If we waited, he might have a stroke.
We chose surgery. During the days that Hollis was being readied for the procedure, I comforted myself by mentally replaying the happiness of the night of his birth. We had spent the evening with friends, including Huxley and Ariel Miller. Ariel knew I was in labor and that the children would want to be part of this event.
From careening toddlers to exuberant teens, they rounded through the dining room, putting their hands on my huge belly, laughing when they felt the roll of a contraction. As we disbanded for the night, children and adults surrounded me, put their hands on me and the baby so obviously on his way, and sang St. Patrick’s Breastplate: “Christ be with me, Christ within me ... “
As we awaited Hollis’ surgery, I wondered if we had used up our joy and gratitude the night of his birth. The surgery was supposed to lower Hollis’s blood pressure immediately, but even days afterward, the pressure was still high. We were told to take the baby home and to try not to worry. We were afraid to ask what our options were if his blood pressure stayed high.
On Pentecost, we carefully got ourselves ready for church, easing the baby into a new outfit. We didn’t want to miss hearing our guest preacher, Bishop Herbert Thompson. As always, he preached wonderfully, a sermon in which he showed us the love of God by telling a story about his mother.
Since Hollis’ illness, we had heard plenty of well-intentioned stories and some very wrong theology, as acquaintances and neighbors tried to explain why these things happen. The sermon was just what we needed.
We stood in line to greet the bishop and to thank him. I focused on holding myself and the baby firmly. The bishop smiled, as he always did, and then looked closely into my face and at the sleeping child. The line behind us stretched the length of the church.
He continued holding my hand and looking at Hollis’ face. He asked me, “Is your baby well?” I lost any firmness I had tried to maintain, and said that no, he wasn’t well at all. He asked me all about it. Then the bishop reached out his arms for Hollis and said, “Give me this little servant of God.” He held Hollis close and made the sign of the cross on his forehead and began to pray. When he handed the baby back, my husband and I felt almost as comforted as Hollis must have. The next morning at his appointment, the tiny blood-pressure cuff registered “normal.”
When I see Bishop Thompson with his shepherd’s crook, I know what “pastor” means. It means taking time to look into the faces of the people waiting to say, “Welcome to our parish.” It means looking past a mother’s lipstick bravado to see the Steri-strips beneath a baby’s new outfit. It means seeing what is beneath the surface and taking time to reach out, to touch and to pray.
That little servant of God is nearly 12 now. The scar from the surgery wraps halfway around his chest, but it’s more memento than scar. Our family never passes through this holy season without thinking of the bishop’s smile and feeling him tuck that baby into his arms -- a loving model to try to emulate and a powerful glimpse of the comforts to come.
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