Bringing Home Baby

D1 just turned 17 the other day and as folks often do on such occasions, I found myself hitching a ride on the wayback machine: It was not one of those long and dream-like excursions through time though; it was more of a momentary flashback, but one in which the sensations were as real as any present waking moment. For a split second, as I passed through a certain place, every one of my senses was telling me it was 17 years ago, and we were bringing our new baby home for the first time. It was enough to stop me in my tracks.

I was simply walking by the laundry room on the way from the kitchen to the front of the house. As I often do, I glanced into that little room, and that’s when it happened. Expecting to see the closed door to the garage, instead I saw – and this is particularly interesting to me – heard, smelled and felt, too – all the same sights, sounds, smells and textures of the moment 17 years ago when my wife walked through that door carrying our newborn son.

The view was curiously cropped. Oh yes, I was filming the event and saw it though the viewfinder of a video camera. I can feel the camera in my hands, warm and smooth. My hand shakes a bit. There is a familiar smell – new construction – our house is only a few months older than D1. But not a smell we usually experience now. In the background there are still boxes in the garage, beyond the blue Honda that I just made room for in there so we would not have to have the baby out in the cold for long. There really are not many sounds; my wife said something like “We’re home - finally!” But I remember the silence most because for a fleeting second that silence I experienced all those years ago reminded me just how scared I was to be coming home to the house we just moved into with a baby that I believed I knew nothing about raising . . . It was a stark, cold, lonely feeling. I put down the camera and embraced my family. Then it was all instantly, awesomely, OK.

I walked on down the hall and found that D1 still has not taken his laundry hamper back up to his room.

Sigh.