It’s April, 1998. I’m 32 years old. I’ve just married my soul mate, we bought a new house and we are starting our family. We want two children or more. I figure I have 6 good years to complete this task. That’s 72 chances before I’m 38. A seemingly endless stretch of time in which to conceive.
So I had to create a plan of how I would tell my husband that I was pregnant. I wasn’t pregnant yet. Didn’t get pregnant on our honeymoon like what happens to other couples. But that doesn’t matter. I’ll be pregnant soon and I want to be prepared for how this major life moment was going to unfold. I was in charge, and it will be poignant and unforgettable.
I had some major criteria: It had to be big – as big as the engagement and wedding and honeymoon that he had planned and surprised me with (you know about this, yes? It’s the most amazing story! Truly, incredibly romantic). It had to be dramatic. I wanted it to center around not just the surprise of our unborn child, but some other big surprise as well. I wanted to bring tears to his eyes, the same kind he always brought to me – the kind mixed with laughter and incredulous love.
And he had to be surprised, genuinely surprised. No easy feat for the man of a thousand questions.
Finally, I worked it out. It played beautifully in my mind, and made me cry (a frequent and easy accomplishment). The plan was, I would have a party, a surprise party, at our new house. In the center of our living room will be a brand new baby grand piano I would purchase as a wedding gift for him. We are surrounded by family and friends. He comes in and after the initial “Surprise!” dies down, I begin to play and sing:
“People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one, life’s just begun, think I’m gonna have a son. He will be like you and me, as free as a dove, conceived in love, the sun is gonna shine above”…“Danny’s Song” by Kenny Loggins
But getting through the song is difficult in rehearsals. I can’t sing it without cracking up. Not in a ha-ha way. In a can’t-catch-your-breath-ugly-cry way. My eyes squeeze tight and I have no voice at all, just a mushy face wincing and dissolving into tears.
That’s how I know it’s going to be powerful ... if I could only execute.
I’ll just practice until I’m strong enough to do it.
The song holds great meaning to us both. It’s one of our favorites, one that we used to sing at the top of our lungs together whenever it’s on the radio. Typically, I’d choke up right at “even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey, everything will bring a chain of lo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ove.” He’d laugh at my sentimentality. I’d smile at his willingness to let me be the emotional sap that I had only recently discovered I was so completely capable of being.
The scene is beautiful in my mind. Over-the-top drama. Perfect for the romantic, tender man who confessed to me one amazing night that he has been in love with me since we were twelve years old. And moreover, that he measured every other girl he dated from that point on, to me.
I had some major criteria: It had to be big – as big as the engagement and wedding and honeymoon that he had planned and surprised me with (you know about this, yes? It’s the most amazing story! Truly, incredibly romantic). It had to be dramatic. I wanted it to center around not just the surprise of our unborn child, but some other big surprise as well. I wanted to bring tears to his eyes, the same kind he always brought to me – the kind mixed with laughter and incredulous love.
And he had to be surprised, genuinely surprised. No easy feat for the man of a thousand questions.
Finally, I worked it out. It played beautifully in my mind, and made me cry (a frequent and easy accomplishment). The plan was, I would have a party, a surprise party, at our new house. In the center of our living room will be a brand new baby grand piano I would purchase as a wedding gift for him. We are surrounded by family and friends. He comes in and after the initial “Surprise!” dies down, I begin to play and sing:
“People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one, life’s just begun, think I’m gonna have a son. He will be like you and me, as free as a dove, conceived in love, the sun is gonna shine above”…“Danny’s Song” by Kenny Loggins
But getting through the song is difficult in rehearsals. I can’t sing it without cracking up. Not in a ha-ha way. In a can’t-catch-your-breath-ugly-cry way. My eyes squeeze tight and I have no voice at all, just a mushy face wincing and dissolving into tears.
That’s how I know it’s going to be powerful ... if I could only execute.
I’ll just practice until I’m strong enough to do it.
The song holds great meaning to us both. It’s one of our favorites, one that we used to sing at the top of our lungs together whenever it’s on the radio. Typically, I’d choke up right at “even though we ain’t got money, I’m so in love with you honey, everything will bring a chain of lo-ooo-ooo-ooo-ove.” He’d laugh at my sentimentality. I’d smile at his willingness to let me be the emotional sap that I had only recently discovered I was so completely capable of being.
The scene is beautiful in my mind. Over-the-top drama. Perfect for the romantic, tender man who confessed to me one amazing night that he has been in love with me since we were twelve years old. And moreover, that he measured every other girl he dated from that point on, to me.
It didn’t fit. It didn’t come close to fitting in our small little house – anywhere – unless we wanted to give up the couch or the dining room table. The L shaped living arrangement we had just didn’t meld very well with the shape of this lovely baby grand piano.
My bubble burst.
I went in tears to our friend John. “It doesn’t fit. There’s no way to make it fit.” I can’t believe I had gotten so close and had just figured this out. I felt so completely deflated.
John is very dear to Michael and I. A talented musician, he has the wisdom of an old soul. Tall, lanky, and completely bald with one blind eye that takes awhile to figure out; John is just a lovely man who is completely, unabashedly, in touch with his feminine side and that makes him quite capable of being your best girlfriend. He’s my sage. He has this ability to drop little pearls of wisdom on you just when you need them. Surpassed only by his skill at cutting right to the heart of the matter with the tough questions one tends to avoid.
“Well, Kerrie, you know, (everything John says is peppered with “you know” or “you know what I mean?”) why don’t you get him something practical that he can use every day in his songwriting? There’s a professional studio that I know he would love and that would save him a lot of money in the long run with his demo’s.”
Sigh. Where was the drama here? I just couldn’t get excited. It was too practical, and who wants practical at such a magical time in one’s relationship?
I was heartbroken. My vision shattered. I tried to recreate it a thousand times with this new reality, but it wasn’t the same.
Finally, I acquiesced, John was right. We began our work together to research and buy the studio.
It would still be a surprise, but now I had to work on how to announce our future pregnancy to my husband in an equally poignant way.
1 comment
Great writing! As always!
Love Kenny by the way, such a vocal range!
Gail Gerhardt