April is a special month for me. On April 20, 25 years ago, my son was born. His birthday was even more special because it happened in the same month as my mom’s birthday — an April 16 baby she was.
My mother’s been gone for 16 years now. Many of you who have lost parents understand that it feels like yesterday and also forever ago. My mom was a practical mother, but not particularly cuddly. If I were to get sick, she was likely to list the mistakes I’d made in running down my immune system rather than just make me chicken soup and tell me she was sure I’d be better in no time. She did the best she could in trying to make me self-reliant.
When Harrison was born, a softer side of her emerged. It may be just my experience, but it seems parents who are strict with their children are less likely to try to fix their grandkids. A child and a student of the theater, my mom also liked to sing to him. A Bushel and a Peck from Guys and Dolls was one of her first serenades to him. But the one she did most often was a song from Yankee Doodle Dandy called Harrigan. Close enough to our son’s name, Harrison, it calls for spelling out the name in a silly, sing-song way. “H.A. Double R-I, G-A-N spells Harrigan,” James Cagney and Joan Leslie intone in the movie version.
Those early days were stressful for our new family, because we adopted Harrison, and Pennsylvania then had a six-month waiting period before the adoption would be final. During the first three of those months, the birth parents had the right to change their mind. Adoptive parents could either choose to parent the baby during that time and take the risk that you might not stay together or select foster care if the uncertainty wasn’t something you could handle. We chose to parent and brought our son home from the hospital at two days old.
For as neurotic as I usually am, I was too busy and sleep deprived to give potential failure much thought. Once though, in a sleep-deprived dream, a knock came at our front door, and I opened it to thick fog. “H.A. Double R-I, S-O-N Spells Harrison,” was the song the person was singing into the mist. I wish I could remember what happened with the rest of the dream, but I don’t. A few months later, Harrison was officially ours. Hug your kids and grandkids. And always make soup.