Yesterday was my son’t birthday and as birthdays often do, it has sent me wandering back through the years to those moments that somehow stay perfectly preserved in your mind. Some memories don’t stay because they were dramatic or life-changing in the obvious sense. They stay because, in a moment when you were vulnerable, someone showed you a little bit of kindness that went far beyond what was expected.
I remember the day I was about to have my planned C-section a few weeks before due date. There was the relief (bad pregnancy with heavy nausea), the nerves, the anticipation and that strange feeling of knowing that very soon my entire world was going to change. I was waiting to meet the little person who was going to join the centre of my universe, but at that exact point I was also aware that I would completely dependent on other people to look after me for the next week.
Then came the moment that has stayed with me all these years: rhe anaesthetist who my gynae has asked to support him for my operation had that rare ability to make someone feel calm and safe. Not just through skill, which of course is what you need in that situation, but through genuine warmth and humanity. As he was putting me under, he held my hand and started singing “One for My Baby” by Frank Sinatra. It sounds almost like something from an old black-and-white film rather than something that actually happened in a hospital theatre, but it did. And nearly three decades later, I can still remember it.
It wasn’t really about the song itself, but about the gesture: someone recognising that behind the medical procedure was a scared person; we often talk about doctors and nurses in terms of their expertise, their qualifications and their ability to save lives and rightly so. But sometimes it is the small, human moments that become the memories we carry forever: a reassuring voice, a gentle hand and that little bit of emotion when you need it most.
Earlier this week, I found myself thinking about that evening again: those final few seconds before everything faded, and then the strange, surreal moment of waking up and instinctively reaching out for the plastic cot beside me, only to realise both arms were attached to tubing. It was the moment when everything suddenly became real, the moment I went from being the person waiting for a baby to arriving back in the room as a mother, holding the beginning of a completely new chapter of my life.
Life moves at a ridiculous pace: babies become adults, years disappear, and memories that once felt so close can suddenly feel as though they belong to another lifetime. Yet there are some moments that remain untouched by time, preserved exactly as they happened, no matter how many years pass. The Portland Hospital, a Frank Sinatra song and a kind hand holding mine as I went under anaesthetic.
And that was the beginning of what I hope will be a long, happy and contented life for the wonderful, intelligent and funny young man he has become. Because when you look back over the years, it is often not the big, dramatic moments that stay with you the longest. It is the small acts of kindness, the unexpected moments of humanity, the gentle reassurance from someone who understood that behind the medical procedure was a person experiencing one of the biggest moments of their life. Those are the memories that have quietly embeded themselves into my life story and remain there forever.
And to Mr JS, wherever you are – just know what you did that day remains in my heart…
