One
Very Long Saturday
By John W. Vander Velden
.jpg)
9-10-2022
It
was the calendar that led me to thinking about a particular day. I shared that September
10th with others, but mostly with Jackie. I have learned that our perception of
occurrences is limited to our own ability to absorb what is happening around us.
Though others were there, my uptake on that twenty-four slice of my life will
be unique.
For
no others saw those events with my eyes, heard with my ears, or felt the profoundness
of that day with my heart.
I was
forty-two years old, and that day unfolded into a once in a lifetime experience.
It was uncommon for this farmer to be away from his work all day on a Saturday.
It was uncommon for me to be in a room with a Notre Dame Football game on the
TV screen, for hours.
I
had never taken the time to watch the coverage, pre-pre-game to post game explanations,
in my life. Before or after. The results of that Michigan game didn’t much
matter to me and in the South Bend area they were better off forgotten. I found
it to be white noise to fill the hours, as I sat near the window at Jackie’s
side.
I am
not certain what value I provided during that long day. Perhaps some might say
I just took up space. I hope, I at least, offered some moral support.
In
some ways I was a coach, offering but a little help to someone engaged in a
process, I could never fully participate.
A
man on the sidelines, on a day where men always stood on the sidelines, or
disconnected entirely.
I
don’t remember if I ate breakfast that morning, but Jackie had insisted her
eldest sister fetch me McDonalds, about the time the sun left the sky. Though I
had insisted I was fine, what coach would even
suggest differently, I was grateful for the sustenance within the paper
bag. Who knows, without it, I might have passed out. But if I had, there were
those nearby to treat the medical needs of prospective fathers.
I
may have been the coach that day, but as far as I was concerned my beloved
Jackie was the whole team, and the focus of my attention, Notre Dame Game or
not.
But
there was another involved in the drama that played out so slowly within those
four walls of a room on Fourth Street in Mishawaka. Someone out of sight but
very much in our thoughts. Someone that seemed to resist, fervently, a change
of venue.
Darkness
came outside that window at my back. The TV was extinguished, all the words
about the game had been used―at least twice, and that was enough. Then Soothing
sounds from the sea played on a continuous loop. The gentle calls of whales drifted
down from the audio device for hours. I had nearly come to the point of
believing I understood their strange language, when I asked to have the whales
be put down.
It
was a long day, and becoming a long night.
How
much longer for Jackie as she endured the pain that I could not share. No other
could, though millions upon millions of women have endured a similar experience.
I suppose that number would be in the billions and not a single man among them.
We
males on the sidelines or worse should never puff up our chests after such an
event―never. Yet often we do, as if
our involvement in the process would equates to more than a footnote.
But
I was there, for there was no other place else on earth I would rather have
been. I shared the experience, even with my limited participation and my
contributions of questionable worth.
How
does one describe their life?
For me
it is best explained in the events I have lived through. Some of those things
are dark, painful, break your heart kind of things. Some are frightening. But
the best, the very best, lift us to places we have never been before and likely
will never reach again. And five minutes until that very long day would click
over to the next, I reached that grand mountaintop. For the unborn child had
been a real part of Jackie’s world for nine months. But when Nick physically entered
my world, he was truly our son. It was a wonderful end to the day.
That
very long Saturday was exactly twenty-eight years ago. It was an ending but
more importantly a beginning.
Happy
28th Birthday Nick
