Happy Nothing.

Three months before Billy turned 24 he and his young curly haired bride were still waiting. And waiting and waiting. During the week she would go teach third graders at the little underfunded public school in the tiny Indiana town. He went to Seminary classes during the day and carried more books home from the library at night. Billy read incessantly in the evenings, but after their modest dinner of Spanish Rice, he stood by the sink and washed and dried the dishes while she shifted uncomfortably in the metal frame chair by the card table so they could tell each other about their day. At this point, there was no sitting comfortably in any chairs, no sleeping comfortably in any bed.

They deliberated about whether they would be driving the 30 miles to Elkhart again tomorrow night to stay with the Welkers for the weekend. Every weekend they stayed in an extra bedroom or on a pull-out couch of another farmer in the little Baptist Church on the edge of town. Should they call someone to plan a youth night after all for Saturday night? Or would they be commuting back and forth to Elkhart General Hospital by then?

They listened on the radio to news about the war in Vietnam, they didn't keep listening when hippies Simon and Garfunkel came on to sing their number one pop song -- Bridge Over Troubled Waters. They couldn't know that their government had tested a nuclear bomb in Nevada several hours before their dinner or that the world's first non-proliferation treaty would be signed a month later while they were finally commuting to Elkhart General Hospital .

They were both nervous and excited. Billy was naive about what was about to happen. Gloria was all confidence. But nothing happened. I was scheduled to arrive. They had been waiting for nine months for this day, February 5, 1970.

I didn't arrive for one whole month. A ten month pregnancy! My own memories of this world don't start until two years later, and they don't sync up with real-time for another two more. So I can't explain what I was thinking when I decided to hibernate for another month of quiet limbo in ambiotic fluid.

We're hibernating today, too. Staying inside, not going out, enjoying the warmth of inside, avoiding the blustery weather out there. It feels nice to be peaceful and quiet indoors, waiting for the start of the Superbowl and the chicken in the oven to be roasted through.

I'm sorry, mom. I can't imagine how taxing I must have been on your tiny 5' frame, but I'm grateful, too. 36 years after I was supposed to arrive and didn't, I still feel like I'm gestating and arriving and growing. I'm convinced that any ability I have to see the hope woven into the future is mostly a result of the hope that you filled those early years with. So...Happy Nothing (that is...no birthday)! But thanks for being patient with me...