The alleged diaper in the rafters of our basement ceiling had worked its magic twice and given us two beautiful daughters. Wait a minute. There was no diaper in the rafters of our basement ceiling. I know because I checked. I could not find one. Those two beautiful daughters did not come from the magic of an imaginary diaper. They came from a loving and gracious Heavenly Father.
And so did the third one.
Our friends, Joe and Eileen, were often willing baby-sitters for our two daughters while we went wherever we needed to go. So it was a somewhat serious question Linda asked Eileen in the fall of 1981.
“Are you going to be willing to baby sit for us when there are three children?”
After the message of this question sunk in, Eileen rejoiced with us and indicated she and Joe would be more than happy to baby sit for three children.
Our final two-child Christmas came at the end of 1981. On that Christmas day, Mandy had just turned five a month before and Jenny was three and a half. I have no idea what they got for Christmas that year. But I am certain they had a happy Christmas.
Finally, when the cold and snow had retreated from the Illinois Valley and was back up in northern Canada where it belonged, and the sun was shining and the air was warm and it was the day after Mother’s Day, Monday, May 10, 1982, Linda woke me up early with the announcement than number three was about to make his/her entrance. Mandy and Jenny were quickly dressed and the doctor was called and Joe and Eileen were informed. Soon the two girls were with Joe and Eileen, the mid-wife was on her way to People’s Hospital (the same hospital that had the messed-up X-ray machine when Jenny hit her head), and Linda was in a bed at the hospital and I was by her side, camera in hand for the big event.
In the mid to late seventies, hospitals began to treat birth as a family event instead of as a mysterious medical event reserved only for the eyes of doctors, nurses and technicians. I had the privilege of being present for the birth of all three of my children. And a camera was present also all three times. All three births were recorded for posterity.
This was, perhaps, the easiest of the three deliveries for Linda. You may want to ask her if that really is true. We had the same doctor for all three deliveries, but this doctor had a nurse mid-wife who did the actual deliveries. He provided the pre-natal examinations and was on call if there were problems, as in the case of Mandy being in the wrong position and having to be turned with forceps. But this delivery, like Jenny’s, went smoothly.
The photo shows Kathy with her sisters, Mandy and Jenny, and Mary B., the nurse midwife who delivered all three of them. Taken in our home in Oglesby, Illinios in 1982.
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I had predicted that both of my first two children would be girls. I do not know why I thought that. But something inside me said they were girls. I had also predicted the sex of our third child. And, as it turned out, I was correct.
About mid-morning on that Monday in May, our third little girl made her way into the world. She was named Kathleen Marie. This was the name my sister, Pat, and her husband, Bill, had given to their little girl nearly twenty years earlier. She was my niece who died at the age of two with a hole in her heart. We named our little girl after her and in honor of her. We wanted the name to be preserved in our family history.
Almost immediately after her birth, Kathleen Marie Parsons earned a nickname, a nickname she still uses, over twenty years later, in her email address. She began making cooing sounds as if she were trying to talk. Linda cooed back to her, almost as if she understood what Kathy was saying. So her nickname became “Chatty Kathy,” and Kathy’s email address today contains the word “KatChat.” As it turns out, she has had a lot to say.
All three of our daughters have brought much delight to our lives, both as children and now as adults. They are each a precious gift from God. They are each individually talented in different areas. They have each grown up to be dedicated wives and mothers, and, with their husbands and children, my grandchildren, each remains active in service for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Kathy, however, has the strongest sense of humor.
Recently Mandy told her mother and me that when the three girls were growing up together, it was Kathy who made her laugh the most.
Almost immediately after her birth, Kathleen Marie Parsons earned a nickname, a nickname she still uses, over twenty years later, in her email address. She began making cooing sounds as if she were trying to talk. Linda cooed back to her, almost as if she understood what Kathy was saying. So her nickname became “Chatty Kathy,” and Kathy’s email address today contains the word “KatChat.” As it turns out, she has had a lot to say.
All three of our daughters have brought much delight to our lives, both as children and now as adults. They are each a precious gift from God. They are each individually talented in different areas. They have each grown up to be dedicated wives and mothers, and, with their husbands and children, my grandchildren, each remains active in service for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Kathy, however, has the strongest sense of humor.
Recently Mandy told her mother and me that when the three girls were growing up together, it was Kathy who made her laugh the most.
