Present at Birth
Author: Bill Roberts
Present at the birth of my brother first,
in 1939, then my sister in 1941,
born in the same maternity ward,
our parents’ upstairs bedroom at
1245 35th Street in Georgetown,
northwest Washington, D.C.
I watched at Dr. Donald McDonald,
known to me as Dr. Donald Duck,
pulled first brother Jimmy from his
worn medical satchel, then sis GeeGee
from that same satchel a year and
a half later, like a magician pulls
a fluttering pigeon from his top hat.
Within a few months of GeeGee’s
arrival, the Japanese pulled their
infamous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor,
announced to us on our enormous
upright Zenith radio, causing my Dad
to cry like a baby, so Mom followed suit.
We were all crying, we kids because
earlier in the day we learned of
the passing of famous Dr. Donald Duck.
One more sister, Bee, was born three
years later, near the end of the big war,
a new doctor coming to do the honors,
no magic from his satchel, just all
business, no slight of hand – the price I paid
for being a big shot, all of eight years old.
Note: This is a new poem, recently minted (like yesterday), to prove that the memory is still intact….though I can’t always remember where I left the car keys. Yes, I thought babies were delivered by doctors from their worn black satchels. Well, at least until I was eight and knew better (wink, wink). ‘Twould be a far, far better way of knocking them out, instead of the long, tedious nine-month waiting period. I recommend to all who read this to take up Dr. Atul Gawande’s books, especially his second one, titled Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. There’s a chapter later in this important book titled “The Score,” which everyone – especially all men! – should be made to read. It’s about childbirth and it will open your eyes to some revelatory facts. If all men read this lone chapter, the rate of childbirths in the world would plummet by at least half, within a year. Enough said.
