My mom tells a funny story about the day I was born.
It isn’t like “Ha! Ha!” but more like the way she tells it. See, I am a little
disfigured on my face. I have had 27 surgeries to correct some of the flaws,
but now that I am older, 10 years to be exact, the doctor promises he can
reduce the number to two a year.
“So when I was in mom’s stomach, no one had an idea
I would come out looking the way I look. Mom had had Via four years before, and
that had been a ‘walk in the park’ (Mom’s expression) that there was no reason
to run any special tests. About two months before I was born, the doctors
realized there was something wrong with my face, but they didn’t think it was
going to be bad. They told Mom and Dad I had a cleft palate and some other
stuff going on. They called it ‘small anomalies.’”
The night I was born, mom’s regular doctor was not
on duty. There was this pimple nosed skinny doctor working that my parents
called Doogie after some old TV show. Two nurses waited on my mom and she said
one was nice and sweet and the other was not nice and sweet.
Here is the funny thing. The not very nice and sweet
nurse kept farting. She would give mom some ice chips and fart. She would check
her blood pressure then fart. What is more incredible, mom said this big armed
nurse never apologized for the behavior. She would just drop a bomb and walk
off. Mom and dad were cracking up.
When I finally arrived the whole room became silent.
The nice nurse grabbed me and ran out into the hall. Dad followed her out and
dropped the video camera that smashed to pieces. Mom got upset and tried to get
up but the not so nice nurse held her down with her big old arms.
They were practically fighting. Mom would yell at
the nurse and the nurse would yell back and finally they both yelled for the
doctor who was on the floor having fainted after my birth. This upset the not
so nice nurse more and she started kicking him which released one of the
biggest farts on record. So much so it woke the doctor up!
It turns out the farting nurse wasn’t so bad after
all. The doctors came back into the room and told my mom that I was very sick
and I may not make it through the night. That is when the nurse whispered in my
mom’s ear, “Everyone born of God overcometh the world.” This same nurse held my
mother’s hand when they introduced me the next morning.
Wonder by R.J.
Palacio is not to be missed. It is a book both adult and tween and all those
ages in between can enjoy. Auggie, our fifth grade hero, keeps the story funny
and up lifting. He wants to make sure you understand he is normal and sometimes
even wonderful.
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