His Delight Is In Me

9:35 am yesterday morning, I bid goodbye to my cousin, pulled off the yellow paper hospital gown and blue powder-free latex gloves and threw them in the nearest trash-bin with a sigh of relief. I don’t like hospital visits. Never have. Never will. But familial duty called me to the sick bed early Wednesday morning, and I tried to respond with something resembling cheerful alacrity even though everything in me wanted to rebel. I had found my cousin seemingly comfortable and surprisingly cheerful, visited for as long as I could bear the vinyl chair and scratchy gown and then made my escape.

I was in a considerably better mood as I wound my way back through the maze of hallways, down the elevator and through a series of lobbies. A couple more doorways and the end would be in sight. In my haste I nearly ran into a man about my own age coming through the second lobby door. He was well dressed and attractive, but unshaven and disheveled. In one hand he held a cup of coffee and in the other an empty baby-seat. The visitor pass on his shirt read “maternity.” As I apologized he glanced up with a half smile, but immediately forgot about me as the expression on his face returned to something between sheer terror and pure joy.

I turned to watch him as he entered the elevator. He stared at the empty seat he held, seeming almost surprised by his burden. Soon, I realized, he would come back down the elevator with the same tiny car-seat . . . but it wouldn’t be empty. At the top of that elevator a mother was waiting with a new-born baby – his new born baby and in just a few minutes they would follow my steps out the front entrance. For me, the automatic doors would open on just another Wednesday. For them, they would open on a brand new life. I tried to imagine how that would feel, but failed. As the doors closed on the young father, I wished him a silent blessing, then turned and went on my way.