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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
August 7, 2005
Published as Family History
in a Gramma Letter dated October 1, 1996.
© 1996 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Bud & Newborn David on Couch, 1981
© 1981 by Bud Grossmann
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FIRSTBORN CHILD
Tuesday, October 1, 1996
Dear Gramma,
Fifteen years ago—on a Sunday morning in October of 1981—I gave a little speech in front of the people of the church Fran and I attend. I still remember my entire text. No doubt about it, that was the most successful speech I ever presented anywhere. Thunderous applause went on and on and on. People continue—from time to time, these many years later—to comment favorably on what I said.
We had arrived at church just as the service was beginning. Our pastor welcomed first-time visitors and made some announcements. Then he asked if anyone else had anything to say.
With a blanket-bundled baby in my arms, I walked down the center aisle of the sanctuary and stepped up to a microphone. “My wife—Frances Wong—and I would like to introduce to you,” I said, “the newest member of Church of the Crossroads. This is our son, David Chung Lum Grossmann. He came to us last night, and he will be one week old tomorrow.”
A moment of stunned silence preceded the congregation’s roaring ovation. I carried my kid down the aisle again and joined Frances in a back pew. David slept through the service. I stayed awake myself, but I was still so astonished by the wonder of fatherhood that the hymns and sermon seemed a vague murmur in my mind.
Any new baby receives a warm welcome at Crossroads. This particular kid was greeted with a special enthusiasm, perhaps, because some people knew he had been ten years in the making.
Now, I say “ten years,” but you could measure our “pregnancy” in different ways. Maybe it was two months, or maybe only a few hours. In any case, it wasn’t the nine months of gestation that parents customarily experience.
Soon after we married, Fran and I had decided we would adopt kids instead of producing homemade ones. But then I spent a decade doing what I do best: procrastinating.
In the summer of ’81, my wife issued me an order. “Here are the application forms from an adoption agency,” she said. “I’m turning 30 in November, but I want a baby while I’m still in my twenties. Fill in the forms.”
In August, a social worker named Lynne Silver interviewed us in our home. Lynne seemed to approve of what she saw and heard. But she warned us: babies were scarce. She would be in touch.
We heard from Lynne again when she called in October, around noontime on a Saturday. “Bud, how are you?” she asked.
“That depends. Do you have a kid for us?”
She chuckled. “I might,” she said.
And for the next few hours, I felt so light-headed I may as well have been in a dream. By suppertime, I had become a father. By morning I actually looked and smelled like a daddy (silly smile on my lips, circles under my eyes, baby-burp on the shoulders of my dress shirt). I was fully prepared by then to deliver my brief-but-brilliant speech to the people of Church of the Crossroads.
Six years went by, Elizabeth arrived, and nine more years rushed past. Fifteen years, so far. Fifteen years! But you know, Gramma, there are still times, almost every day, when I look upon my children, and I am blown away, like a leaf on the wind, with the dizzying joy I felt the first morning I woke to the hungry call of my newborn son.
—♦—
Frances and the kids and I—we all send our love to you, dear Gramma and Great-Gramma.
Love,
Buddy
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