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~ Anthony Wayne ~
No it's not, I insisted. My baby is not a girl. My baby is a boy.
Sure enough, on Saturday morning, my baby arrived and proved all those nurses wrong. A girl, indeed! <Harumph!>
Anthony flew the coop in March, 2002, and spent
some time living in Ohio, where several family members live. He only
Admittedly not current, either, the photo above right was taken in 2004, and is another of his better pictures. Much water has passed under the bridge since this was taken, and though he is still the intelligent, caring, charming, generous young man, I see in him today changes, most of them hard-won changes for the better. Oh, how I love Anthony dearly and keep all good things for him uppermost in my heart . Life today is hard enough without trying to fabricate trouble that wouldn't otherwise exist to add to the struggle. I am and will always be proud of him for being who he is... even when he insists I cannot be!
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Born
August 7, 1982 in
West-By-God-Virginia, Anthony arrived unexpectedly, a few weeks before he was
due. It was a Friday afternoon and I had just walked home from work. I
had stopped at the store along the way to buy a few things I needed, and was
picking up around the house when "it" happened. At first I thought I had lost
continence, so ran to the bathroom, except as soon as I sat down it stopped.
Because technically my baby wasn't due yet I was not prepared, and so it never
occurred to me to think- Oh! My water just broke!
While
I was pregnant with Anthony my doctor's nurses insisted I was pregnant with a
girl. The shape of my belly, the speed of his heartbeat, told them, in their
infinite wisdom and experience, my baby was a girl.
Even
while in labor, the maternity nurse insisted all indications were, my baby was a
girl. All I could do was tell her how wrong she was because my baby was a BOY
and his name was Anthony Wayne and he BETTER be a boy because I had not one girl
name picked out!
Anthony
graduated high school in June 2000 (gawd, am I that old already? It seems like
just yesterday...). Built like a football player, he preferred tennis and played
on the tennis team two of his four years of high school. His senior year he
surprised us all by joining the wrestling team, the best thing he did for
himself all those four years.
stayed a
short while before returning to North Carolina, but before he came back he
caught up with his father. The picture at right is Anthony and his dad, taken in
the spring of 2002. Catching up with his dad was one of the reasons he went to
Ohio (even though he may not have realized it at the time), and the renewed
relationship has been an important milestone in Anthony's life- Not because it
brought good things, necessarily, but because it brought him reality. It is hard
to talk reality away when it's staring you square in the face, huh!
Despite
the fact Anthony continues to struggle and often yet makes not the best of
choices for himself, I am proud of my boy. He has a huge, good heart and willing
nature, two things I pr ay will help carry him through the continued difficulty
of being a young adult today. He is smart, funny, charming, generous to a fault
and forgiving, attributes which will serve him well throughout life.
Though
the photo above left is several years old, it is one of my favorite pictures of
Anthony. It seems to me to invoke the goodness that is within him all the time,
even though he often doesn't know it and is rarely aware of it. I suppose that
is one of those parent perks- we can see things in our children even our
children may not realize for years to come.