80/365 History: Sophia's Baptism II

I have this baby. And I'm sick. So sick. Someone--my mother? my husband?--calls Fr. Bill and he comes to see me. I know I must be in bad shape because after he does the blessing of the sick, he stands at the foot of my bed. Staring. Nobody is asking me how the baby is (all those new mom guides warn you--after the baby is born, nobody notices you anymore, just the baby--but this isn't true for me. Everyone is staring at me).

We aren't friendly anymore at this point--when I left to have this baby, the last week of school, things went badly. That's putting it mildly. I'll blame it on me, even though I probably only hold 75% of the blame. It was a long time coming and I refused to see anything in shades of gray and then...I had too much to say.

We'd gone to lunch so I could tell him how ticked off I was. But it didn't work out that way and he wound up convincing me to consider volunteering at the school the way I'd planned--the plan was a year of volunteering a few hours a week and the next year back in the classroom. But even if I'd done the year of volunteering, the school closed the next year and I can't say I was upset.

But later, I mean, it's been almost 9 years, I softened and let it roll off my back. I survived--Joey is gone, Sr. Fern, Fr. Bill, everyone, really, except a few students and parents who adored me. I should have stayed in my classroom with my head down and did my job. I know better now.

At the moment, though, I realized I was going to have this baby baptized at the parish I no longer felt like I belonged to. I debated calling Mike's uncle and doing this down in Cairo, except my family wasn't in Cairo...I was aggravated, but we scheduled it for September 16 solidly and went with it.