Mario's Birth
My brother was born when I was four years and four months.
I woke up in the middle of the night and heard my parents getting ready to go to the hospital. I was awake but pretending to be asleep. My dad carried me to the car, then into my grandmother‘s house to stay with her, even though they had not carried me in a while. That was probably the last time I got away with that. I knew my mom was pregnant, but they never told me about going to the hospital. My grandmother explained the whole thing to me while she was making me breakfast. That afternoon, when my dad came back, and I finally fell asleep on the couch.
By a happy coincidence, my tia Mary and my tio Carlos were also expecting. In fact, they went to the same obstetrician. Mary went into labor, the same day as my mom. And then, the two boys, my cousin Michael and my brother, were born on the same day, October 8, delivered by the same doctor, in the same delivery room, but a few hours apart.
In those days dads did not stay with moms for the birth. My uncle, my cousins, and my dad played and ate at my grandmother’s house. Some time later, I went with the two dads to go pick up the moms and the babies. I rode between them in my uncle’s car.
When we drove into the pick-up driveway at the hospital, my dad and my uncle got out, but I was told to wait in the car. It took a while, but then my aunt came out looking as beautiful as she always did, but in a wheelchair. I got scared. A nurse followed her carrying the baby. Looking over into the backseat, my aunt easily got out of the wheelchair. I was so glad. She sat down and the baby was put in her lap. Remember, this was long before the days of seatbelts or car seats.
Then my mom came out in a wheelchair, I was concerned, but now not afraid. She also easily gets in the car, and my brother put in her lap.
From the Maywood Hospital on Slauson to grandmother‘s house on Kern and Union Pacific Ave we go.. The house was filled with grown-ups. Another aunt was pregnant, I don’t remember who the other grown-ups were. Everybody fussed over the two babies. They had two bassinets in my grandmother‘s bedroom. The babies were put there.
The living room full of people and sound was getting too busy, hot, and loud for me, I went into my grandmother‘s bedroom. First was my cousin Michael. He was so dark and he had so much black hair and was amazing. He grew up to be a redhead. Then there was my brother. I was watching him breathe. I thought he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was watching him. Just watching him breathe.
The door burst open and my mom started screaming, Leave the baby alone! What are you doing! Why are you bothering him?! You’re going to wake him up!
Then, of course, because of all the noise, the babies started crying. And my mom says, See! You woke up the babies! and she slapped me and pushed me through the bedroom door just as my aunt was coming in.
Going to the end of the hall, I couldn’t stand. I sat by the bathroom door. I couldn’t hold in my crying. I was crying so hard. I was crying that kind of crying where you can’t get your breath.
That shock of going from feeling great joy, to feeling pain and betrayal and enormous confusion in only a split second. It is possible that life hasn’t given me that extreme of a shock ever again.
After a while, my Aunt Mary found me and started talking to me. By then I was only crying. She comforted me. She took me by the hand and we went back to the bedroom. She sat me on the bed, She picked up the baby and put him in my lap and showed me how to hold him.
Then she introduced me to my little brother Mario.
Forever after that, she was my mother.