So Many Agoes

Chapter 24

Spring 1971

Everyone says that nothing prepares you for having a child, that it's impossible to know just what to expect. Well, perhaps Emilienne and I were over prepared or we were just blessed with the easiest child on earth, but we had the simplest adjustment period possible. No bumps in the road, a sleepy baby that was perfectly content staring at her mobile for hours on end, and two obsessed parents, made for a wonderful winter break.

We brought Issie (our little nickname for Denise, pronounced Eessie) home on the 28th of December. We still managed to make our hotel reservation on New Years and brought our newborn with us. I will never forget watching Emilienne hold our daughter on New Years Eve while watching the snow fall silently over Manhattan in front of the big window in our little, temporary slice of heaven.

Even with all the uncertainty the future held, the two of us being parents, Thomas missing, we were somehow at peace. I held Emilienne from behind and the three of us swayed together. Emilienne's eyes were shut, an act she did when she wanted to savor the moment; holding on to every little part of the way she felt in that exact second.

We excitedly sent the news home, with photos of Denise. A myriad of congratulations and baby gifts were sent back to us. It was all so surreal.

My favorite thing became waking up in the cold mornings to Emilienne holding Denise, swaying back and forth and singing to her softly in Creole while she fed.

She'd often have tea brewing or a winter soup bubbling on the stove. It was a beautiful sight, seeing her obsess and love our child with so much grace and strength. After I would wake up, I'd take a shower and the three of us would relax in bed, preparing for the day ahead.

We loved taking Denise out with us, we'd swaddle her up in four or five layers of blankets and clothes to keep the New York cold out and bring her with us to the library, to our favorite restaurants, and if it wasn't too frigid, we'd take a walk through Central Park.

We let Denise touch everything she wanted. She would manage to wriggle her little arms out of her cloth prison and reach her tiny, reddened hands out to grab onto anything and everything, never putting things into her mouth, but always looking so curiously. She'd burrow her fingers into Emilienne's hair, or toy with her signature hoop earrings. She loved wrinkling my shirt collars, and running her hand down my nose. It was such a heart warming feeling, for someone so tiny and curious to feel safe and have interest in the mundane things we often forgot about.

Some mornings, Emilienne would be too cold to clamber out of bed to tend to our hungry baby girl, so I'd get up, light a few candles, make up a hot water bottle for the both of them and bring her tea to her. I'd carefully lay our daughter in her arms and the two of them would insulate each other under the covers.

The hard part was returning to school. I desperately didn't want to leave Emilienne alone, I just wanted to spend time, the three of us, as a family. It took a lot of arguing, but, I was able to convince some of my professors to allow me to bring Denise to class to give Emilienne some much deserved alone time each week.

We would call home to Milcreek every week to update our families on our lives; every week there was something new going on in our lives, whether it be Denise laughing for the first time ever, or some white supremacist following Emilienne and Denise home from the corner store yelling racial slurs the entire way.

It became very apparent to me how Emilienne was constantly ridiculed for having a child yet when I was with Denise, I was praised for being a wonderful and involved father. It was a double standard that irked both of us.

I would get some strange looks, walking around campus with a black baby attached to my chest and a heavy backpack on my back, but I loved having her with me. I'd bring a little floor mat with me and set her up on the floor next to me on her tummy, where she'd happily bite the corner of her blanket and fiddle with crinkly toys.

She didn't interrupt often but when she did, it was too cute to get upset. She'd let out a happy chirp that made the other students in the class giggle with childlike glee. Sometimes my professors would bring her a little gift, something simple, usually a crumpled piece of paper that would occupy her for hours as she tore it apart and curiously analyzed it.

Time flew by and Denise grew extraordinarily fast, with her almost doubling in weight within the first 3 months. She even started rolling short distances and became more vocal as time went on, expressing her emotions by blowing raspberries and babbling. Both Emilienne and I will swear to this day that baby Denise would try to talk to us with attitude from day one, her vocal intonations indicated that she wanted to have words with us, but just didn't yet have the language to do so.

The first month back to school was emotionally difficult. My mind weighed heavy on Thomas as I constantly manifested his safety and well being. Emilienne got good at noticing when Thomas was on my mind, often when I'd be bottle feeding Denise or attempting to study, I'd be caught staring into the void with a blank expression, contemplating life and playing childhood memories of Thomas and I like little movies.

Emilienne would often step in to distract me, to prevent me from falling into a depressive episode once again. She'd ask me what I was studying and would help me pick up where I left off, or she'd pull my forehead to hers and have me repeat after her,

"Whatever happens, it will be okay, someday, somehow, someway. I will be okay, eventually. Right now is for focusing, planning and working, no negativity is allowed here."

It worked wonders, and I actually caught myself rising to the top of my academic class. It was when Emilienne returned to school that we stumbled. A new schedule, a new adjustment period, a new host of misunderstandings and catty arguments.

It wasn't easy, but we made sure to communicate how we felt, we sat down to write out a schedule to avoid being cranky and on top of each other every morning.

Support is by all means the most important thing a person can offer. No one deserves to do it alone, ever. Which is why the older Emilienne and I got, the more support we wished to offer to those who weren't as fortunate as us. Young people thrown out by their parents due to the choices their young minds made, and the people they decided they loved. Love, support, a helping hand will always be the answer. As my granddaughter loves to say these days,

"Love is Love"