Summertime Is Always The Best Of What Might Be -Charles Bowden

E.B. White wrote, that even the crickets felt it was their duty to warn everyone that summertime can not
last forever.
   Before I say goodbye to August, I never leave this month without the stories of my August babies.
   Hartley turned 32 yesterday and Ward would have turned 35 on Thursday this week.
My favorite people are born in August, and those happen to be two of them.

Let me start with Ward, by August 26 of that year, I looked sick. My skin was yellow, my feet and ankles were mammoth, and I needed this child to come out. My labor was for 24-28 hrs, I think it was 26, but over the years it changes. It was the end of time, long!! Back in the no medication days, I was dying. We believed in pain, the natural birth cult, along with nursing babies til 1st grade! ( a very slight Lochte-like story) After my darling husband( we were newly weds) had three, maybe four full meals brought to him, in my room, by the nice nurses, I asked him to go home, he was making me sick!! I asked to die, or have him reach up my hoo-ha and yank this child out of me. He continued to eat, somehow, me screaming made him hungry. He went home, and had to be called back to the hospital, for my section. Our baby was born, and I was numb, and happy.
I did not know anything about babies, or my body, after having a child. We were in for a long, loving, bumpy road.

Three years later, I was knee deep pregnant in August. Hart was born on the 21st.
Ward and I were sick, my mom had come up to take care of us, and I went into labor.
Bill came home from work, to drive me to Trenton, N.J. hospital, where they were more concerned with my breathing, or lack of breathing, then my labor pains. I had pneumonia and with a c-section baby, they were nervous. I made sure I had a female doctor for this child, because male doctors can not make the right decisions about labor pain. They have no form of reference. My new doctor, she knew!! She had even had c-section babies, so I was in labor with Hart for about 1 hour! ( not counting all day little labor)
He was a big baby, and went home wearing 3 month baby clothes! He was solid, or maybe I had just grown in three years, and could handle a baby better. Maybe both, he was good and I was seasoned.

I brought him home, and Ward wanted to nurse with him!! I told him, he would not like my milk anymore, but he was going to have his way. He tried it, and turned up his nose, but he felt included, and that seemed to make us all happy.

My August boys, took my heart and still have it.

We had many August months through the years, until Ward died. We never forget his birth, and will celebrate it always. He was the best of what might be.

Hart continues to shine and now he shares that light with his bride. He is one of my best, I have five best in all!! Keith, Brian, Ward, Hart and Emma, you are my Summertime, my Best.