| photo �Amanda Buhler Sunny Side Up June 29, 2005 �2005, Kathleen Gibson Sometimes two is not company For several years I tutored a remarkable African woman in the intricacies of the English language. During that time I participated in the birth to her eighth and last child. After emigrating, she'd noticed that we prefer small families here. At first she wondered aloud if Canadians didn't like children. She'd sensed some ill-concealed scorn for the size of her brood. (Oh, Canada, for shame.) One day, just before the birth of her child, I said, "Look, I have a friend who's expecting baby number seven in a few weeks." A look scampered across her face, like the wind teasing a summer field. There and gone. "Would you like to meet her?" Mavis is one of the most intelligent women I know. She chose to raise children, like some women choose to become doctors, or lawyers, or teachers. She's a cook and gardener par excellence, an organizer supreme, a financial wizard, a keen thinker who'd likely have a PhD, should she have received credit for all the self-educating she's done over the years. We piled in the car and drove the thirty or so kilometers to Mavis's modest home in the country - my student, her five youngest children, and I. The day was as ripe and sweet as a wild strawberry. We consumed it, dipped in the music of children's chatter, the cadences of women's laughter. Two mothers, both swimming upstream in an alien culture, and me - the mom with the socially correct family size - two grown kids, one of each. Me, along for the ride, dangling my toes in the stream of mothering a multitude, enjoying the tickle. Both babies arrived within weeks after our visit. One dropped shiny wet, the other slate blue, into the doctor's waiting hands. I watched as their parents greeted them with the ebullient joy deserving of a gift from heaven. To them these weren't baby number seven and eight. They were miracles; the first of their kind. I think about my student's comment, about us not liking children here in Canada. Did her perceptive heart see that many Canadians invite only two or three children to share their lives because, perhaps, we value other stuff so much more? Personal comfort, freedom, careers, cars, Franklin Mint collections - important things� We stopped at two; I couldn't face another pregnancy. My seven months of steady nausea were so debilitating that in desperation, I once told the Preacher to take me out and shoot me. Now that they're adults, I rue the decision. I would love more daughters to chat with; another tall son to heft me up and swing me around, just because he could. I'm glad there are still big families, few as they are in Canada. Glad that even though most of us back too soon away from this God-given privilege, there are others who fill in some of the blanks for us. Except that no one but God knows the names of the babies who may have come to my house. Respond Home |
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