The Writers' Circle

MORNING SICKNESS -
A New Mother's Look at War

	Unopened birth announcements for my brand new son, along with this morning's local newspaper, lay on the hospital tray within arm's length of my hospital bed.   My husband, Jake, had placed them there for me earlier this morning when he stopped by the hospital to check on us - me and his brand new son - on the way to his office downtown.  I could barely recall him being in the room at all, let alone remember what time that had been.   My mind and body still felt heavy from last night's deep, yet restless, sleep, induced by medication and a total physical, mental and emotional exhaustion like I'd never experienced before.  Visions of numerous blurred faces belonging to doctors and nurses,  the odd light from the hall outside my  room, and the strange sounds and smells of the maternity wing had drifted in and out of my semi-consciousness all through the night hours.  Yet always, the magnificent image of my newborn son floated happily upon those dreamy sensations like a child's beach ball on a gentle wave, providing me with fleeting memories of tiny blue eyes just beginning to open to register light and recognition, the comforting sounds of soft murmuring coos, and his tentative, jerky little body movements as I held him in my arms.  
	Immediately after Jake had come into my room and briefly woke me this morning, I had quickly fallen back into this silent sleep-world of visions without weight and texture.  But now, as I reached for the colorful birth announcement cards on my bedside tray to get a better look at the pastel images printed on their cover, my eye caught the headlines on the front page of the Kansas City Star lying directly beneath them: 

	"Bloody car bombing near Bahrain, 2 American soldiers killed, 	10 wounded, and 1 missing" 	


	Real hunger was beginning to settle in my stomach; a deep, needy quest for essential nourishment yearning to fill a void left by the emptiness my body had exchanged for the new little life now resting in the brightly lit, glassed-in 
nursery down the hall from my room.  I was also becoming aware of a vague discomfort and my whole body was aching like the day after my first aerobics class that I had joined at the community center last year.  It wasn't that I had a headache exactly, but that my mind wasn't completely functioning at normal capacity after the drugs from yesterday's delivery.  Full comprehension of everything around me, and especially the wondrous events of my son's birth yesterday, hovered over my mind like a word on the tip of my tongue I just couldn't grab. 
 
	That headline. 

	Suddenly, I want to see my son again, count his warm and chubby little pink toes, reaffirm his  thriving heartbeat as his body snuggles warmly against me in his blue hospital blanket as I nestle him tightly and securely in my arms.

	"A big AH-1 Huey Cobra helicopter airlifting the wounded from the desert floor, was gunned down on take-off by insurgents firing 	from a point just past the main road from Bahrain yesterday.  The enemy gunfire came from a crowded area on a higher bank of seemingly deserted earthen structures slightly west of the bombing site just as the idling engines rose to the sky.  Mangled bodies and parts of machinery rained down on the previous devastation, adding another layer of horror onto the already devastated and smoking earth."  

	The reporter writing the article told about how he sobbed as a young 	medic partly carried and partly 	dragged the limp body of a wounded 	young guardsman past him, the boy's screams at odds with what was left of his face, a flag-red liquid where his mouth should have 	been.  The medic placed the dying soldier in the relative safety of a 	tall, matted tangle of flatland scrub near a thatch of rare grass, cradling the dry blakes around the boy's body like the folds of a quilt while the sounds of combat continued to drown out any other noise.   
	
Footsteps approaching:  breakfast?	
	The volunteer's fresh young face peered around the door of my hospital room.  She smiled brightly at me, stepped back into the hall, and then reappeared with a tray full of covered dishes.  A plate of scrambled eggs and a container of milk filled my vision  at the same time the aroma of bacon wafted across the room. I thanked her, and I really meant it. I gratefully moved the birth 

announcements and the newspaper I had been reading off the bed tray and placed them over onto the night table to make room for my breakfast.  The 
newspaper came unfolded, revealing several photographs that accompanied the feature article.

	Several flag-draped coffins sat on the black tarmac, the wheels of an huge aircraft visible between the two men standing at attention beside each mother's son who had been shipped back home in a 	box.

You can have my breakfast tray back.  I want my child!! 

	Two more, smaller photographs were just below the larger grainy  one I had previously spotted.  

	The first photo showed one of the fallen youtn soldier's high school graduation picture from a school in the Midwest.  He had bright shining eyes and a serious look upon his fresh face. The tassel on his cap feathered across its brim, looking like he had been in motion and  could barely be contained or sit still long enough for the photographer to  snap his likeness, eager to get started on  	
a new phase of his life, with this major accomplishment already behind him.
	
	The second photograph was of a young, handsome African-American boy,  sitting stiffly in his dress uniform, the pride in his 	posture reflected in the pride on his face.  The look on the cadet's unscathed  face showed innocent satisfaction mingled with eager anticipation........his left hand held an AK-47 military rifle.

	I recalled the satisfying feel of my newborn son's hand as it tightly clutched my finger the night before.  I had opened the snuggly-wrapped blue blanket and looked him over from head to toe.  I carefully counted every perfect little digit and noted his rich, rosy coloring,  the slight forcep marks on his downy blonde head, the small pink lips.  I had very carefully re-wrapped him and cushioned his body into the crook of my arm, supporting us both with the pillows below my head and shoulders.  I listened to the rewarding sound of his breathing, still not able to believe the miracle of the life I held safely against my body.
	I heard the sound of steady footsteps coming down the hall toward my room and knew the pediatric nurse was coming to my room to deliver my infant son to me for our first visit of the day.  I hurriedly pushed the offending newspaper and its horrible story  and photographs aside.  
			

		Such beautiful boys........so young;    
				BABIES  REALLY!