And there she was!
I was in the cab with a coworker when I noticed a familiar face had suddenly appeared on my muted iPhone. We were on our way to dinner at a favorite Chicago restaurant after an afternoon of listening to insurance seminar speakers. It would be easy not to take the call. And if it had been anyone else, I might have let it go to voice mail.
But not this call. This call was different.
The picture that I was looking at was that of my daughter Megan. It’s the picture that several months ago I assigned to her contact profile – the one with the smile that proves that our investment in her braces was a good one. But this call was bigger than braces. It was the day of her ultra sound appointment. It was the day that she was hoping to get some news. And the rest of us were waiting to hear what she had heard.
Everything had been going as planned with Megan’s first pregnancy and this was the day of the appointment that Megan and Mik expected to find out the gender of my fifth grandchild. I fumbled with the buttons on the phone but managed to answer before the call shifted to voice mail. “Hi there,” I said. “How is everything in your part of the world?”
“It’s great dad” Megan replied. “We got some news today!”
I could hear the smile in my daughters voice. It was the sound that all dads want to hear from their little girls. A sound of complete happiness, excitement, and joy. Those are tones that can’t be faked. A parent recognizes them immediately. And this was the real deal.
“Dad, she said, it’s going to be a boy!” The rest of the conversation is a blur to me tonight. I know we talked about the guesses that were mostly wrong and my prediction that the string of first born children being boys in our family would continue. We talked about the babies movement that Megan has been feeling, the need to get measurements and more details at the next appointment, and a few other things that seem to go along with the joys of maternity.
Before I knew it we had arrived at our restaurant. It was time to end the call. But before we did we gave each other a long distance verbal hug. I told Megan I could tell this was better for her than all the joys of so many Christmas mornings. It was truly a joyous time, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
Thirty three years ago this month Megan’s mother gave birth to our first child. Back then we didn’t know the gender in advance. I wonder if my parents could hear the smile in my voice when I walked out of the delivery room and said, “Hey Dad… It’s a boy!” Now that I know how good that feels, I really hope they got to experience it too.
And then there would be five.
