A friend and I had a booth at a popular two-day outdoor craft show and festival this past weekend.  We sell greeting cards and paper goods (also at www.mclax.com, which isn't finished yet, but will be someday).

So, we put our tent up, but could only find one stake.  Then the wind came, thought our tent was a sail, and promply blew it over, scattering our paper goods as well.  The festival hadn't opened yet... it was still set-up time.  But here's what amazed me.

Other vendors came running over.  The women with a booth next to us (selling hand-blown glass) were the first to reach us.  They said something that really touched me, for some reason:

"Tell me the first thing I can do to help."

I was flabbergasted.  I'd never met this woman.  I stammered "Um, get the cards, I think."  (That was our product flying around the grounds, see.)  Several folks helped us rebuild our tent.  None of us were tall enough to put the canopy up right, until a man with a cane came by and said "Aha!  You meed a man with a stick!"  He used the curved handle of his cane to catch the canopy and pull it over the tent frame. 

After the mayhem had subdued, I asked the woman from the next booth why they were going so far out of their way to help us.  "We're going to be neighbors for two days!" she said, smiling. 

These folks made me feel fuzzy all over all weekend long. 

Follow-Up Blog

There were so many spin-off events from Patrick's birth, I wouldn't even know how to begin to list them.  Becky's career change to nursing was a pretty big one.  I reconnected with my spirituality, though, after his birth/death... and that totally changed my world, and so much for the better.

Michael and I went our separate ways... but he called me one day, about 5 years ago, and said that he and his wife were expecting a baby boy.  He asked if it was okay if he named their baby Patrick.  This was such a considerate thing!  I said I was thrilled for him and his wife, and thought it'd be wonderful if they named their son Patrick, and they did.  The little guy's about to start kindergarten now.

As I looked through my small memory book today, I came across a few things.  Don't feel obligated to read this... I'm just blogging for my own mental health. 

The second page of Becky's poem, titled "For The Love of Susan"... I lost the first page early on. 

And so I find resolve
That I need not know why
Only that I live
And there should be glory in this alone
And I know this
For the love of Susan.

Then there was one I found somewhere, and kept:

Love does not come in sizes;
It cannot be measured by the length
Of a life.

All the pain and sorrow in your heart
Is there because you have loved.
Don't turn away from your child's
Brief moment with you;
Trust your broken heart.

In time, you will know its wisdom;
Love is stronger than death.

A card from Michael's mom.  She wrote:

Dunno how to express it, but I think you are very special to have had Mike's son.  We are so sorry, but I know (these three words are crossed out) heck I don't know nothing, just feel awful, but that too will pass, give us time.  Enclosed few bucks.  Wish was more.  Take care of yourself & Jimmy.  Love, Corkey B.

From Michael's grandmother, who passed away last year:

Hi!  There!  So proud to know your doing alright.  My!  Goodness!  You've been through enough now for awhile.  Truely hope nothing else comes up.  (She discusses things happening in her town)  I speck Jimmy is excited about going to school?  I took Michael on his first day to school and at the bus every evening when he got off.  You take care now.  Everything's gonna be alright.  From Granny and Tinker (her dog)

Ten Years Ago Yesterday

(Flow of thought, here... forgive the lack of cohesiveness in this blog.)

Patrick David was born on July 7, 1992.  He was my second son, but he was stillborn. 

Today, Patrick's singing and dancing and doing whatever cool things children do in heaven.  And as a sweet friend said, "God's a better parent than we are, so Patrick's having a GREAT time!" 

A 10-year old Thank You to Michael for ignoring his boss and flying back early from a business trip, risking his job, for our son's arrival.

Michael and I were friends with a couple named Tim and Becky.  They sat with me while I explained to a then-5-year-old Jimmy what happened to the baby.  Tim went to the airport to get Michael, and Becky sat with me through delivery.  She had no experience in the medical field -- she was in accounting, for Pete's sake!  But there she sat, all day and night, holding basins for me to vomit in, changing my bedsheets when the nurses weren't attentive, and answering the phone and saying "She's not taking calls right now."  She and I both held Patrick for an hour, worried we would forget what he looked like.

A few years later, Becky and I drifted apart.  Last I heard, she had completed Nurse Aide Training, and went on to get a degree in nursing, based on that time together with Patrick.

Then we reconnected a couple of months ago.  Here's mail I got from Becky just a few weeks ago (*note:  "demise" is hospital talk for stillborn):

Do you know that yours was the first delivery I ever attended?  And do you know that I have since attended some estimated 1500 deliveries?  And do you know they used to pick me out of a crowd to attend demises?  There was a day that I had done a record four deliveries -- two sections and two vag -- one very quick where I actually caught the baby myself -- it was about 5 pm, 10 hours into a 12 hour shift.  We were swamped and hadn't eaten or peed.  My clinical manager asks me attend a demise that was recently admitted with Dr. S_____.  I thought, "I just can't do this -- I'm exhausted.  Why me?"  And then I thought -- I'd rather it be me, exhausted and all, then another nurse who couldn't see past not eating, not peeing and being exhausted to understand what this mom was going through.  And we delivered before 7, and I stayed at the hospital until 8:30 to attend the baptism on behalf of the hospital and make sure the mom and the family was going to be okay before I truned over care.