Happy 30th Birthday Rino B.!

(This was originally posted two years ago,

but it was one of Rino's favorite blogs)

Simply Rino B.

I could see it in the nurse's eyes.

The darting looks between her and the doctors.
The whispers.

The fearful stares.

And as hurried movements and medical linguistics increased,

I knew our newborn son was in trouble.

It would be hours before Larry and I were solemnly informed

that we were the proud parents of a dying baby boy.

And like a modern midnight Mass reading, there was no room at the inn.

No nearby neo-natal unit with an empty crib.

Not one tiny bed for our precious second born son.

A transport to the Air Force base in Pensacola was ready, but he wouldn’t survive the flight.

The Last Rites followed an ICU Baptism.

IV needles taped firmly in both sides of his bloodied, shaved scalp removed any doubts that September 13, 1979 would be a day that changed our lives forever.

And tonight, as we toasted his 28th year and exchanged parent/child conversations about life, and grandchildren, and a wife…not necessarily in that order…

I touched his curly dark hair, patted him on the cheek.

I remembered the prayers and pleas offered from that hospital gurney so many years ago. And somewhere between that frantic ambulance ride down a moonlit

Bayshore Boulevard into the Tampa General’s preemie unit;

and his dark imported beer order this evening,

we were given an extraordinary gift.

Lawrence Richard III…our Rino B.

Tonight, Rino’s rascally dimpled grin, not so very different from the one that peered

at me from the rails of his big-brother Charles' hand-me-down crib,

appeared when we sang him the traditional birthday song.

It grew wider when Charles insisted that he had been handed the wrong fortune cookie …

the one that read...

“Your cheerful attitude is your greatest asset!”

“So,” Charles inquired dryly, “is there any chance that this cookie really belongs to me?”

No So Much!

Give it to Rino.

And he did. And we hugged.

And we howled.

And we told Rino how very much we love him.

And how proud we all are.

And then these fine sons, these boyhood buddies, stuck chopsticks in their lips like walrus tusks and made pornographic shadow figures in the flickering candlelight.

Do you two want to go to your rooms?

Happy Birthday my baby boy!