The Canadas

 

 

 Winter 1998

News

Happy New Year

Esprit Arrives

Good and Evil

The New Teacher in the House

Updated August 10, 2002
© Canadas 2002

 

And Then There Were Three

After eight years of marriage, Lisa and I welcomed someone else into our family: Esprit Nueva Canada.  Her arrival on January 18 was one of the happiest moments of our lives, and she went on to bring us more joy—and work—than we ever thought possible over the next 12 months.  Essie, as we had decided to call her, quickly made herself at home and began living up to the names we had given her.  “Esprit,” which we pronounce “es PREE,” is a French word meaning many special things, including "spirit," "soul," "mind," "wit," "humor," and "character."  Her middle name, "Nueva," is pronounced “nue-AE-vah,” and is the Spanish word for "new."

 

Happy New Year

January 1, 1998: As a lover of things new and good, I especially love the New Year, which invites us to leave our past mistakes and find the best in us. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin says of his plan to reform himself: "It was about this time that I conceiv'd the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection." Because he knew the difference between right and wrong, Franklin wrote, he saw no reason why he couldn't do one and avoid the other. I suppose that the novelist D.H. Lawrence, who sneered at Franklin's optimism, is not the only person to dismiss Franklin as simple and unrealistic. Still, while we may never eliminate all the natural disasters and diseases that challenge us, surely even many of the Lawrences of the world will agree that we can make ourselves and our neighbors more peaceful, less lonely, more loving. Once natural disposition, societal pressures, and other forces have had their say, we ultimately choose and act. Let us choose good and act well.

Esprit arrives

January 18, 1998: With one exception, this weekend was a typically uneventful one for us. On Saturday, Lisa and I drove up to Aberdeen to do our grocery shopping at Super Kmart and had lunch at the Lone Star Steakhouse. At home, we took a nap, I horsed around on the Internet, and Lisa talked to her sister Jessica on the phone. That evening, on a lark, we watched television's answer to the B movie, "Walker: Texas Ranger," and went to bed at 11. It was about that time that things started becoming exceptional.

After months of anticipation, a few weeks of false labor pains, and a whole day of strong but irregular contractions, Lisa experienced a series of regular contractions about 10 minutes apart--the first signs that the baby girl who had been residing in our imagination was ready to make her appearance on earth. By 1:30 a.m., we were at the hospital. At 7:52 Sunday morning, the world--especially ours--took on a new, pinkish, beautiful hue. All 6 pounds, 9 ounces, and 21 inches of Esprit Canada had arrived.

It's nearly 12 hours later now, and I'm sitting here in a dim hospital room in Laurinburg, North Carolina, with two people who have changed my life. As I sit here watching both of them sleep, I realize that trying to explain what the newest one means to me would be as fruitless as trying to describe the boundless, transcendent love I have for her mother. All I can do with any precision is to recount a few of the rich moments that accompanied her arrival.

I remember pain--the awful pain that I saw on Lisa's face as we walked down the empty hospital halls, trying to ease and advance her labor, and as I stood by her bed for hours, helping her to breathe through the contractions. I remember relief--the relief I sensed in Lisa when a wonderful nurse named Paula Edwards gently stroked her and comforted her in the early stages of her labor, but even more my own relief when our midwife, Alma Kay Woolard, came into the delivery room at 5 a.m. By that time, I knew that Lisa desperately needed more than what I could give her; she needed the additional comfort and confidence that Alma Kay, who has supported her since the early months of her pregnancy, could provide. Alma Kay came through splendidly with a combination of sensitivity and aplomb that I will never forget. Finally, and greatest of all, I remember joy--the joy born of pain, relief, and love as I saw for the first time Esprit's tiny face and knew that she was our child.

I have heard that the love that parents have for their children is even greater than the love they feel for each other. I find it hard to imagine any love greater than my love for Lisa, who is more to me than I am to myself. I do know, though, that the love I felt for Esprit the first time I saw her was the most immediate I have ever known, for, while every other person I have known in my adult life has come to me as a stranger, this little person was someone I already knew and deeply loved.

Good and Evil

February: Philosophers have argued for centuries about whether humans are naturally good or naturally evil. While I tend to think--perhaps wishfully--that we are naturally good, I have seen plenty of evidence to the contrary. Usually, it comes in the form of a news report about terrorist bombings, genocide, or the like. The other day, however, I saw something that affected me even more strongly than these atrocities. As I was driving to work, I saw the driver in front of me throw a piece of trash out the window. I was shocked. I had seen litter before, of course, but I don't remember ever seeing the litterer; optimist that I am, I sometimes thought that perhaps those cups and bottles had just blown or fallen off of a truck. Here, however, was the indisputable evidence. For several minutes, I thought about this litterer, trying to understand his motivation or rationale. I think about him now. Perhaps he is not bothered by the sight of trash alongside the road--or by the thought that it bothers other people. Maybe he thinks he's giving work to prison inmates--who, of course, could be doing more constructive work than picking up garbage. Maybe he just didn't think at all. The last of these possibilities strikes me as the most likely, as well as the most revealing. While I think Sigmund Freud was right when he pointed out that humans use defense mechanisms to rationalize their evil behavior, I think a large portion of humans never even reach the point of rationalization. Perhaps we should not categorize humans as "good" or "evil," but think of individuals as existing along a spectrum of awareness. On one end are the ones who scrutinize their every move, earning the nicknames of "goody-two shoes" and "bleeding hearts." Farther down the line are many litterers, thieves, even violent criminals, who never even consider the cost of their behavior. Perhaps fixing some of our social problems is a matter not of making people good, but of making people think.

The New Teacher in the House

March 7, 1998: Being a teacher, I have been looking forward to educating my new daughter in all the things I love: literature, history, music, baseball. For these first few weeks, however, the lessons have been flowing in the opposite direction. Here are a few highlights from my first semester of fatherhood school, conducted by Professor Esprit Canada: