Shari.com: Time Won't Give Me Time

All genealogists dream of the time machine. Sadly, I think most of our questions would have to do with names ("What the &@%$! was your last name?"), other facts ("OMG! Where were you in 1860?!), and historical feelings ("Where were you when you heard Lincoln was shot?"). We just don't know the (wayback) ancestors well enough to ask for more.

Then there are the questions I wish I'd asked my great-grandparents, most of whom were around until at least my pre-teens if not, in the notable example of my paternal grandmother's mother, to my early twenties. Those questions would've been more meaningful and personal, but time ran out before I knew to ask them. It's a different kind of regret.

Luckily, I was into family history for almost ten years before either of my grandfathers passed away. I wish we could've had more conversations, about anything, but I don't feel like we left unfinished business. There's only wistfulness.

Finally, there are my parents.

Sometimes I will suddenly realize that there is something I don't know about myself/our family that only Dad can answer. I run to the computer (okay, I reach over to the computer) and IM my father. Then I get paranoid. Something has happened. I stupidly went my whole life never thinking to ask this question, and now I have, but something has happened and it's too late. Now he's gone and he'll never realize that I cared enough to (eventually) ask. (And then how will I find out what make and model our station wagon was when I was a kid?)

Thankfully, so far, so good. But one day I will have only my memories and best guesses.

Yesterday something dawned on me. I was born prematurely - five weeks early. (My official due date was Halloween, a fact I found delightful while growing up.) For the first week of my life, I was in an incubator. A religious sister (the belief at the time was that Catholic hospitals provided the best care) held me when I was being fed, but I pretty much spent those first seven days alone in a hot box. Of course I have always wondered if it contributed to making me emotionally gimped up, or if it - along with being an only child - explains my comfort/preference for solitude.

(Mike is remarkable in that being with him is just as good as being alone. I know that's a phrase that not everyone gets. It has taken some effort over the years to not be impatient with people who dislike doing things alone. But, to be fair, for a long time I had to put up with people's pity when going to the movies or a concert or out to eat by myself. A little silent boggling on my part is a small sin compared to that irritation.)

Anyway, yesterday I suddenly wondered something about my birth that isn't so self-centered: What exactly did it cost to have me in that incubator for a week? I IM'd Dad then went to bed.

Dad reported back during the night: $7500.

$7500 is 1969 dollars is... does it matter? That's a lot of money to me right now. Maybe I'm just poor like that, but, yikes.

I tried several historical currency converters, and the lowest figure in today's dollars is over $34,000.

Dad's exact words were, "7500 bucks, was a lot then, got them paid." So I'm guessing that, even though Dad had a good job with General Dynamics at the time, there wasn't any insurance or that perhaps this was their share. (I've asked, but he's asleep now, like all sensible people. Me, I'm eating tacos and reading a Regency romance. And worrying about how much I cost.)

I hope they thought it was worth it. Oh, I know they're happy about it now, but did the just-past-newlyweds ever look at this squirming pink thing and think, "Oh crap. This is not what we were expecting. If only we could take it back..."?

That's probably not a question that can be answered. Time does funny things to the head. Even if my parents were regretful at the time, they probably wouldn't have indulged in wasting time on those feelings.

My mother had postpartum depression after I was born. She was overwhelmed. Later, she told me that (once?) she left the windows open in my bedroom that winter, hoping I'd succumb and all of these bad feelings would then just go away. A whopping hospital bill on top of that couldn't have helped.

Or maybe that counts as lowgrade postnatal psychosis? I just heard of this condition last week. In the otherwise unremarkable memoir Wild Boy, ex-Duran Duran member Andy Taylor briefly discusses his wife's struggle with PNP. (By the end of the book, you may find yourself wishing that Tracey Taylor had written it instead. Tracey, what's it like being married to someone who, as of publication, still can't give up the extreme boozing? Who laments John Taylor's substance abuse repeatedly but dismisses his own? Who was the ugly rocker duckling in a band of pretty boy New Romantics? Who had literally thousands and thousands of girls and young women wishing you weren't in the picture? And what's it like to have postnatal psychosis with your first child, be told you shouldn't have kids again, then go on to have three more?)

Doesn't matter. Just thoughts. And it's too late for Mom to tell me more. I would be sad, but I'm just glad she's still here, that she has her good days, and that we had those 35ish years of long discussions. She knew the value of family history all along, and I'm glad I ended up taking an interest.

After I was born, my parents assumed there would be more children, but only miscarriages and cancer (and a hysterectomy, all by the time my Mom was 23) followed. Every tale they passed down, it fell only on my ears. I feel like a basket full of story-eggs. An expensive little basket by itself on a shelf, paid for with a down payment of $7500.

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