She first introduced me to the mysteries of man and woman, but it had been too long since we connected on that level for the baby to be mine. No, I came in as platonic male friend only; and walking into the delivery room, I never felt more useless. Whether nurses or not, the women there all seem to know every step of this dance by virtue of their womanhood.
What can I do? Hold her hand. Beside the bed stands a machine. Its tubes disappear between her legs, up under the blanket that covers her knees. Its numbers measure the pressure of contractions. I’m supposed to keep an eye on them, tell her when they peak and decline, “It’s almost over…” Assurance and steadiness–these are my contributions; but she and I have always had a combative friendship, saying, “You’re wrong” more than “I love you” over the years. So I decide, in my ignorance, that it’s a good idea to sling some sarcasm in there as well, offering support in the guise of oppposition. With a grin, I say, “Come on, you can take it!” Oh, the look she gives me. If I weren’t really busy right now…
Still, I had been invited, even though I only managed to join her for one lamaze class, which neither of us could keep straight faces through. I am godfather to the boy on his way into this world, as much a relation to the mother-to-be as her mother-in-fact, and more welcome. See, my friend is adopted, undergoing a primal rite in which the woman who raised her–a poor, sharp-tempered, histrionic Southern woman–never took part. That woman must wait outside, but the misguided desire to be helplessly helpful becomes too much. In she steps, and as she rounds the corner of the curtain, she suddenly faces her little girl’s spread thighs, a sight I’ve tried to avoid for modesty’s sake. All color drains from her, mouth slackens in awe, horror, wonder, fear, emotions befitting one gazing upon the opened Ark of the Covenant. “Someone get her the hell out of here!” my friend screams, and nurses escort her mother out of harms way.
The labor continues for hours. She chews ice chips to fight down fever. To help her push, they bring in a bar that arches over her bed, against which she braces her feet while gripping a twisted towel that has been tied around it. I see her strain like a squatting, sword-wielding samurai setting himself for battle, but still her son will not come. After all efforts and my friend are exhausted, they pull her baby forth through Caesar’s exit, out her side.
And somewhere in there, modesty slips, pushed away by the urgency of the moment, and I too behold that from which my eyes have refrained. What I see is nothing I have not seen before, but never as it was then. Revelation comes to me, and reverence. I am gazing upon the divine, upon creation itself; and here she teaches me something that never could be learned from any awkward adolescent union, that a man who comes to a woman for merely his own pleasure plays tiddly winks upon sacred ground. We may be invited along that path, o my brothers, but only as a tourists, at best an honored guests, and never–no matter how we might like to imagine ourselves–as proud conquerors.
