My birth complicated life for my family.
In the days just before I was born, my mother knew her favorite grandmother was dying less than 100 miles away. But back in the late 1930’s those were tough miles, much too hard for a lady as pregnant as Mom was. So I kept my mother from spending those last precious days with her beloved grandma, who died when I was barely two weeks old.
In January last year my family repeated this scenario.
News of my father’s soon-to-be-fatal heart attack came less than two weeks before our eleventh grandchild appeared.
Her father, our youngest son, had forged a special tie to his grandpa, so his first reaction to the news was predictable. “I can be in Houston in a few hours,” he offered. On the phone we could feel his disappointment when we reminded him that his wife’s labor pains might begin before he got 10 miles from home.
Like most elegant ladies, Katherine Elise Shelburne had an agenda all her own. Just 8 days before she made her debut in Temple, we were burying her great-grandfather less than a three-hour drive away.
“If Katherine’s born while we’re in central Texas,” I kept telling all her kinfolks, “we’ll detour east to Belton and check her out before we drive home.”
I believe in getting in some high-powered grandpa bonding with my grandbabies just as soon as I can get my hands on them.
But Katherine had a mind of her own. By waiting 8 more days to join our family, she kept her father from attending the funeral for my dad. And, of course, she missed out on the chance her older siblings have had to see and know the venerable patriarch of our clan.
Repeatedly during my first five decades I heard my mother express regret that I was born too late to know her favorite grandmother or for her to know me. Now I think I understand what Mom was feeling. Countless generations have lamented this same tragic sense of loss.
Life and death mesh inextricably. Our family was short one Shelburne for just a few days. My father would have been delighted to know that our grief at his passing was so quickly tempered by our rejoicing at the birth of still another great-grandchild who bears his name. Katherine Elise Shelburne has big shoes to fill.