I figure that it was sometime in 1951 when God and I had a conversation concerning my life’s choices. It was the year my parents fell in love and decided to be married in November of 1952. Maybe it went something like this:
“Lynne,” God said as he invited me to sit down beside Him.
“Yes, father.” I answered. “Is it time to discuss some of the details of my experience on Earth?”
“Yes, daughter, you know how it works. Free choice is a gift given to all people, therefore I can’t promise you things will go as smoothly as they should. My children and their choices can often slow down the plan. I can promise you that if you remain true to me and to yourself, you will fulfill the mission that we will map out for you here, together.”
It was during the conversation that I chose my brothers and my sister. That’s when I was told about my first challenge in Earth life. “Yes, father.” I said. Jim, Chris, Tom, and Wendy I talked it over, we want to be brothers and sisters.”
“Well, daughter, your mother agreed to some health challenges,” He answered me”” In order for your mission to be fulfilled in its proper time-frame, I must send you down to Earth in 1954.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, holding his hand up to quiet me. “But in 1954, the only type of childbirth understood by the physicians other than natural childbirth will be a traditional Cesarean, which allows the mother to birth only one child.”
“What does this mean? I asked, feeling perplexed: You will go to your parents on July 13, 1954 and like your father, you could be an only child. Or you can be born naturally and prepare your mother’s body for the birth of the others.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll do that so that my Mom’s body can prepare to have the others.”
“That is where the challenge will begin,” He counseled me. “Your body will be strong and have normal development until the birth canal. Your mother will then have great difficulty, and thereafter, your birth will be a troublesome ordeal. At the end of that ordeal, your left side will be greatly weakened.
I paused for a while and pondered what the consequences would be if I accepted this plan. “Is there any other way,” I asked.
“No daughter, not for that time period, and your particular mission.”
I began to plead. “Father, will my spirit still be strong?”
“Yes.”
“Will my family be intact?”
“Yes.”
“I will be able to write poems and short stories?”
“You will.”
“I will be able to be a storyteller and care for children?”
“You will be able to do these things.”
“Father, if you send me help, as I need it, I can take on this challenge.”
“It is promised, daughter. You will also do much teaching and counseling of others due to this choice. Although it will be difficult, it will serve many great purposes.”
The plan was mapped out and set into motion. On Tuesday, July 13, 1954, at 5:22 am with a host of relatives, old and young, outside of the window of my mother’s room at Lakeside Hospital, ready or not, there I came. The brothers and sisters that I bargained for came to our family over the next twelve years. In that time, I got on a school bus for the first time, believing that my mother could see the bus carry me safely to school each day. I remember the anguish overtaking my heart when we left school early because someone killed our President. Our family celebrated countless holidays and birthdays surrounded by relatives, most of which were likable. Each one added their own ingredients to the mixture of emotions, talents, dreams, annoying faults, and disappointments that created the work in progress my mother called Lynne Ann.
Mother dying when I was thirteen changed that delicate mixture to the point that for a while I couldn’t recognize the recipe. All of the ingredients started disappearing. There were about forty-five people coming in and out each Sunday afternoon at our house. Those people started moving away. I realize now, at least some were running away, taking with them their songs, their laughter, and the sense of security that I thought was indestructible. Being only thirteen and not able to visit them on my own, they might as well of gone to China. Uncle Bobby and his family moved way out East. Uncle Jerry joined the Air Force. Cousin’s Arlene and Pete took a job in Maryland. Bonnie moved to Texas, etc. It was then that I realized that my mother wasn’t just my mother, she was the super glue that held our family together. My grandparents were the only ones who stayed in town. It felt as though, when my mother died she took more than just one soul with her to heaven. It was a strange kind of abandonment for me, not only did my father remarry four months after my mother died, and many of my closest relatives took on lives of their own, but the hospital I was born in was condemned by the town and torn down. The place where I attended elementary school was bought by a developer and turned into condos. It was as though my entire childhood was erased from existence.
Aha, but the sun did me a great favor. Whether I wanted it to or not, it rose every morning. I found something new to be excited about one summer morning of 1971. I met a long-haired hippie who wore a peace sign on his jacket. Considering the fact that I hated the hippie look and thought the peace sign was a crock, it was amazing this young man in sandals intrigued me. His eyes were tender and sincere. His touch was gentle and considerate, and his communication was thoughtful and inviting. One year and several haircuts later we were married on September 16, 1972. The hippie who intrigued me was now my husband and a private in the Army. Oh what a difference a year makes. Here we were stationed in Fort Belvior, Virginia and the liberal hippie became and Army Republican and it’s probably all my fault.
Two years later Gregory Lee was born. We must have had our own mother/child contract with God. Gregory chose to be a fine man in spite of me. The only thing that was easy for me concerning Gregory was his childbirth. I was under the misunderstanding that I knew how to be a mom, a good mother… HA I didn’t know anything! I thought that because I was the oldest of twelve, and did a lot of care taking, and babysitting that I was ready. Ready, prepared, me? I quickly and solemnly realized that the only thing that I was sure of was that I deeply loved Gregory Lee with every part of me, but I was not sure how to give him what he needed and deserved. So we moved forward learning together to this day.
I continued to write and had a couple of poems published in some small magazines. I co-wrote and copyrighted a song. It was a feeling beyond explanation when I heard it sung in a public forum. Most of my writing though has been for me and my posterity.
We had one child a decade. Our only girl came in the middle in 1983. We are now reaching beyond the mother/daughter relationship and becoming friends. I touched the window of heaven one more time in 1990. That was the year when Henry IV was born, and I almost lost my life.
“Her organs are shutting down one at a time,” I heard Dr. Bures say. “Get her to Stony Brook, now! Alert NICU. Let them know that this little one is coming eight weeks early. Mrs. Urban,” he instructed, “is vomiting every fifteen seconds and will be eclamptic if we don’t get a move on.”
It’s been eleven years since that surprise arrival on a frightening & cold February night. I’ve spent these past eleven years building confidence in areas that are important to me. Lecturing to large groups on the positives of life and teaching coping skills on how to work with the things that are not so positive. I’ve reached some of the goals that I’ve set for myself. I know that the journey is not yet finished not just because of the obvious am still here. But because the list of life’s wishes that is written on my heart is not yet completed.