This morning I woke up and cried. I know this makes me sound like a crazy person, and perhaps that’s not too far from the truth, but this cry was not due to frustration or sadness.
I cried because one of my best friends had a baby last night.
Not normally do I consider joyful tears part of my repertoire, but this birth… it really got to me. Mostly, I think, because my friend Sara and I have known each other for three decades. 30 years! We were babies ourselves when we “met.”
Sara and her mom lived on the other side of the building I grew up in and we first made wobbly two-year-old contact in the little playground that was adjacent to the parking lot out back. I’m not some memory genius so I can’t say I remember that day but I was shy, so most likely Sara, who has never been afraid of much, came over to me and talked my ear off. I may or may not have answered—as I customarily said little those days. I was just happy to have a companion.
The park’s entire play space had three main components: a dented, silver slide, six monkey bars, and a weird turtle-looking structure that we were supposed to hang from, I presume, though to this day I’m not entirely sure. But Sara and I were never ones for extreme physical activity like climbing around. We had our dolls. With our heads held high we strolled into that chain-link fenced-in party area most days of the week for years with our “children” in tow. While around us others screamed and chased one another we fed and changed our respective kids’s diapers, created made-up conversations between them, and took photos of their descent on the slide while everyone else waited impatiently for their turn.
We were pretending to be moms. Then while I was asleep this morning Sara became one.
It’s absolutely bizarre—and so very wonderful—to think that a woman who I waded around in diapers with, who once convinced me that I needed to draw a heart on a cassette in order to make it play, who was the witch to my princess on Halloween in ‘85, is a mom.
I suspect that the most wonderful part—watching Sara become an undoubtedly amazing mother—is yet to come.
All this to say, welcome to the world Andrew Price Wharton. With a mom and dad like yours, you’re one lucky little dude.
