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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
June 17, 2007
Published as Family History
in a Gramma Letter dated June 18, 1996.
© 1996 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Two Brothers, 1970
© 1970 by Bud Grossmann
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A QUESTION OF PATERNITY
Tuesday, June 18, 1996
Dear Gramma,
My brother Bruce and I—in appearance and temperament—are not very much alike. He’s a whole lot taller and huskier; his beard—when he grows one—is thick and full; his smile is bright and easy-going. When Bruce visited here last fall, he met for the first time a friend of mine who said to me—only half in jest—“I’m wondering, Bud: where’d your brother get his good looks?”
Despite our many dissimilarities, I managed, one afternoon in June of 1977, to impersonate my brother at his place of employment. My deception contributed toward your receiving a special birthday gift that year. Bruce and his wife, Dawn, presented you with a great-grandson the day before you turned seventy-six years old. I’ll tell you here how I remember the birth of Benjamin Tyndale Grossmann.
When I lived in California, nineteen years ago, I visited my parents in Virginia. Bruce and Dawn were living nearby, in Washington, D.C. Their first child was due any moment. Bruce was working at that time as a nurse in the U.S. Army, assigned to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. At that enormous hospital, where Bruce himself had been born not quite 25 years before, Dawn planned to give birth to your great-grandchild.
On Thursday, June 23, Bruce called Mom and Dad. “The time has come,” he said. “I’m taking Dawn in, to the hospital.”
Dad asked what kind of last-minute help they might need, with errands or whatnot. “Well,” said Bruce, “if Bud doesn’t have other plans today, he could come over to keep Dawn company while she’s in labor. I’m scheduled to work, and we’re short-staffed, so I’d like to go in for part of my shift.”
I was, of course, glad to help out. I was not, however, entirely prepared for my day’s duties. I had visited friends in maternity wards. But I had never given my full attention to their effusive recaps of the hour-by-hour joy and terror of childbirth. I was a little nervous—quite a lot more nervous, actually, than Bruce seemed to be.
I found Dawn in Walter Reed’s obstetrics department, on a gurney in the hallway. Evidently, bringing babies into the world is a very popular idea, and on that day all the labor rooms were occupied. Dawn was glad to have me with her. She sometimes gripped my hand so hard that I feared she might squeeze a baby out of me. She once seemed ready to curse my dear brother for his part in her immediate anguish, and several times I heard her declare, “Oooh-oooh-ooooooh! I am never going to do this again!” (She did, as you know, volunteer thrice more for the same torture, with wonderful results each time.)
Nurses and physicians frequently stopped by to check on how we were doing and to scribble on Dawn’s chart. Several times people patted my back and gave me words of encouragement. Some told Dawn how fortunate she was to have so devoted a husband. After several hours, a nurse advised us that Dawn would soon be going into the delivery room. “Time for you to scrub up!” she told me as she moved on to another patient. I went to a phone and called my brother. Bruce joined us almost instantly. I kissed my sister-in-law on her furrowed, dampened brow and whispered, “It’s been fun. Bye, bye, sweetie. Have a nice baby.”
As I walked away, a nurse ran after me. “Mr. Grossmann! Mr. Grossmann!” she called. I stopped and turned to her. Jerking her thumb toward Dawn and the person who was now holding her hand, the nurse asked me, “Who in the world is that man?”
“Him?” I said. “That guy? Why, that is the fellow who got Mrs. Grossmann pregnant!”
♦
Gramma, have a HAPPY 95th BIRTHDAY—on Monday, June 24th.
Love,
Buddy
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