Date: To: From: Subject:
September 5, 2012 Xanthe Farnworth Tara Walker Defining Experience
The purpose of this memo is to introduce myself to my professor using a memorable experience from my life that explains who I am. One in particular comes to my mind almost immediately. It begins with the fact that helium balloons always remind me of funerals. The correlation may seem strange, but I remember letting one go on an oddly warm February afternoon. However, that isn’t the definitive moment; something else was. It was Christmas of 1991. I had just turned a very grown-up five in October. Karli and Landon were three and one respectively. My family had driven from Rochester, Minnesota, where my dad was working on his residency, to Idaho Falls, Idaho, so we could surprise my grandparents for the holidays. In spite of how memorable the whole experience was, ironically I only remember bits and pieces—and not always the important ones either. I remember the carpet in my grandparents’ family room, and how the fuzzy blanket looked on the back of the rocking sofa. My parents were at the hospital because my mother had gone into labor. I don’t remember this, but I was told we saw Beauty and the Beast while we waited. I’ve never liked Belle, maybe that’s why. Roughly twenty-five minutes after my mom started pushing; he came. They named him James Curtis Walker. Weighing in at a little over two pounds, the odds were definitely against him. Especially considering his due date wasn’t for another thirteen weeks. James was already a miracle baby because my mom had miscarried his twin long before she knew the gender. In fact, she hadn’t even known there were twins. Obviously he was a fighter. And naturally, as his oldest sister, I was a lover. Oh, how fiercely I loved him. We couldn’t hold him. We couldn’t even touch him. At the hospital they made us wash all the way up to our elbows, and then we had to wear little smocks over our clothes. I remember thinking that the incubator was amazing. My sister and I loved standing on that stool, watching his little heart beat so fast. I remember hoping that one day I would be able to write like the nurse who had colorfully drawn his name in bubble letters. There was a little plush soccer ball in the incubator, and when he stretched his legs it looked like he was kicking it. Dad said he would be a soccer player. Mom just smiled, tiredly. I felt their worry. I decided I would never worry them. After a month, he got to come home. Of course home was grandma’s house, which was perfectly okay, but we still couldn’t touch him. I believed my having warts on every finger was the reason. We even had to wear itchy masks in his room. I also remember losing a tooth, and despite all the chaos, the tooth fairy actually came. James was growing—so healthy they said. Then everything changed. James caught RSV and a week later they life-flighted him to Primary Children’s Hospital. His lungs were so tiny that they couldn’t handle the virus. Grandma and Grandpa drove us down to Salt Lake when my parents decided to take him off the ventilator. He waited until we arrived to take his last breath. I don’t remember him dying, but I do remember that we finally got to hold him. My parents said we were so happy that we didn’t even notice how bruised and swollen he was. I remember carrying his tiny body back to the nurse. Then she let me wipe his name off the vitals board. My parents still tell me how brave I was. Sometimes I wonder if, at age five, I even understood. Something tells me I did—because I still ache to hold him.