I went out to Ohio for my spring break with nesting instincts at an all-time high. I planned on setting up the baby room, cleaning the house from top to bottom, and filling their freezer with home-cooked freezer meals. I also hoped that the baby might come early, but I’m back home now without seeing the baby. At least all that can be done to get the house ready is done and the kids had a break from household chores while I took care of them for a couple of weeks.
The town of Steubenville lost most of its steel industry a few years ago leaving a multitude of houses empty. Esther and John Ben live in a quiet, semi-uninhabited neighborhood in a house that feels like it is at least a hundred years old. The bedrooms have only one wall with a single outlet. The stairs to the second floor which lead to the three bedrooms and only bathroom are steep and narrow. The basement is unfinished, old, and musty. There is no dishwasher and no washing machine and dryer either.
Their house is set at the top of a steep hill, and with the bare trees bereft of spring leaves, I had a lovely view of the Ohio River and the cliffs of West Virginia beyond it. On the narrow strip of yard in back of the house bloomed Forsythia bushes, Mom’s favorite flower. I took up her call of “Forsythia Alert!” whenever we drove around and pointed out the splashes of yellow everywhere. Even the midwife office in Pittsburg had a hedge of Forsythia outside. I took pictures of myself in front of the mass of yellow to remember the day. My heart leaped with joy at the midwife appointment when I heard my grandbaby’s heartbeat. The lady who met with us seemed professional and competent and put me at ease. I understand wanting a homebirth, but it has its dangers and Jonah’s homebirth was enough for me.
The first thing I did when I arrived at Esther’s home was find a Nana station in a cozy chair before the front door where I could wrap myself in shawls around my shoulder, a blanket on my lap, and a little heater at my feet. Esther and John Ben worked on papers and talked deep philosophy while I sat and read brain candy novels on my phone. While they were out tutoring or going to classes, I worked on little home projects. I scrubbed the stairwell and mopped every floor of their little house. I washed their bathroom from wall to wall and kept up on their dishes. I found little things to fix, and when I didn’t know how I watched YouTube videos and consulted Mike. Esther called me a gentle dictator as I urged them to fix the gap between the front door and the floor, build some bookshelves so we could empty the boxes in the baby room, and go through clothes in the bins in said room. John Ben found time to build a desk and put together the crib.
It was Holy Week for them since they are Catholics and I attended Palm Sunday with them and a two-hour Temebrae service in Latin. During their Easter weekend, Esther had so many contractions I thought for sure that birth was imminent, but then they dissipated, and we resumed our nesting activities. During their Holy Week Esther wasn’t sleeping well or feeling well and spent a great deal of time lying in her bed napping. After the contractions eased up, she went back to work on her papers with renewed energy. She even took me to a couple of her philosophy classes where I heard her presentation for the end-of-the-year paper and even participated in their book discussion after speed-reading the first three chapters of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s In Defense of Purity: An Analysis of the Catholic Ideals of Purity and Virginity. Esther’s philosophy professor is a dear and his wife who came to one of the classes was the woman who hosted Esther’s baby shower. She’s a very intelligent woman. I enjoyed her pithy comments in class and her conversation at the baby shower.
Esther had told her the story of how one of my friends in college bragged about the math he could do drunk and to top him, I always derived difficult math formulas or proved interesting mathematical truths while in labor. She told the story to the group of friends, philosophy professors, and philosophy professor’s wives who had come to the shower and then told Esther, “While you are in labor maybe you can figure out the answer to the problem of motivation, whether we act for our own happiness or for the sake of what is good in itself.”
Another lady nearly jumped out of her chair as she sat forward and said, “But the good itself is our happiness.”
The room was filled with tension as before a brawling bar fight. I half expected a loud and rowdy discussion with ladies shouting their views on this important philosophical question, but someone mentioned the weather and someone else asked Esther to open the presents.
My favorite gift given to Esther was from my friend Dawn. Dawn and I were next-door neighbors when I was pregnant with Esther back at Notre Dame. I had been lonely after Mike left for California while I was finishing up my last semester, and Dawn and John adopted me into their family. Dawn gave Esther a baby bathtub to put in the sink. It had holes and when Esther called it a baby colander, Dawn had the most beautiful blush. It may have been twenty-two years since we saw each other last, but she looks the same with her lovely complexion and curly blond hair. Wasn’t it yesterday that she was pregnant with her fourth or fifth child watching the weeks of unresolved election results between Bush and Gore and eating bowl after bowl of Corn Chex? We had brunch with Dawn and John on the Saturday before their Easter and had a wonderful time catching up on our children and reminiscing over those good times. They moved to Steubenville, Ohio where John is a professor at Franciscan University. Mike and I moved all over the place, but Dawn and I have always kept in touch. I am so thankful for longtime friends and my blog and Christmas cards that keep us connected.
Esther received a lot of diapers and gift certificates for a baby diaper delivery service. Most of the clothes were generic because Esther and John Ben didn’t want to find out the baby’s gender, but a lady who was known for guessing correctly gave Esther a basket of blue clothes. I agreed. Esther looked like she had a basketball under her dress. It looked like a boy to me too.
After the baby shower, Esther, John Ben, and I headed to Target to buy a few things that they hadn’t gotten yet. Our big purchase was a crib mattress. They looked over the three choices, read the descriptions, and talked it over. Finally, John Ben said he would choose the middle one which was made of bamboo and was the lightest of the three. He tossed it on top of the cart. We went to the pharmacy section to pick up some toiletries for me, and when I went to put my stuff in the cart and couldn’t because of the mattress in the way, John Ben grabbed it with one hand and lifted it for me. Now Esther has the habit of being all googly-eyed over John Ben and saying stuff like, “My husband is so wise. My husband is so kind. My husband is so wonderful….” It’s rather endearing to see how much they are both still newlyweds completely in love with each other. However, when John Ben lifted the mattress with his fingers, and Esther said, “My husband is so strong,” she was being plain silly, and I called her on it.
“I’m not impressed.” I said, “He chose that mattress because it was the lightest one. Even you could lift it with one hand.” I tossed my stuff in the cart and walked off, but that became a running joke for the rest of our trip.
When John Ben put the desk in the study/baby room together and had to flip it up off its side, I said, “Now I’m impressed. You really are strong.”
Esther said, “That’s nothing. See what he can do with a crib mattress.”
When John Ben carried both my heavy suitcases down the stairs when I left on my last day, I said, “I don’t often want to be a man, but I wish I could carry heavy things.”
Esther and I looked at each other and said, “Like crib mattresses!”
I’m thankful for the time I had with the kids. I’ve long thought of John Ben as a son, but there’s something about living with him for two weeks and taking care of him and Esther and seeing how well they live together in encouragement in their studies and their devotion to God that warmed my heart even more. I love him very much. Taking care of them and their little house was a vacation compared to my work at home.
When I left, their house was clean from top to bottom and the freezer was filled with home-prepared meals. My job there was done. Mike and the kids back in Albuquerque were desperate for me to return and my students needed me too. I must admit that the day before I left I felt a little bored. It was time to go home.
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