Autobiography: My Beginning

BIRTH ADVENTURE

Both of my mothers, Dorothy and Blanche, were present at my birth. Dorothy had no choice about being present; for Blanche it was optional. Dorothy was too preoccupied with the process of having given birth to witness, as Blanche did, my first adventure.

When the doctor reached down to cut my umbilical cord, I reached up and grabbed the scissors so tightly that I swung through the air as the doctor raised his hand. He lowered his hand to the other side of Dorothy as I continued to cling tenaciously to the makeshift trapeze. I could have adopted as my theme song, “Oh, she flies through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young babe on the flying trapeze. . . . ”

When Dorothy got pregnant at 16, Blanche called “Dibs!” on me. Blanche was 17 years older than Dorothy and had always served as a second mother to her; so Blanche told Dorothy, “Brownie and I will take care of you and the baby for as long as you want, but if you ever leave, you can’t take the baby with you.”

Blanche had finally managed to get a child of her own.

CONCEPTION

I might well claim being a product of a virgin birth because Dorothy never changed her story about having conceived me without having had intercourse. As with many in our culture, she had little direct comprehensive sex education. She was totally astonished to discover she was pregnant. Her definition of intercourse apparently included disrobing and lying down. She hadn’t done either, so how had she become pregnant? She was still puzzled when she came to live with me after she turned 90 but she was finally able to say, “Something happened!”

Her boyfriend, Walton Deerfield, was 16 and apparently had a similar lack of knowledge of the process. He denied responsibility for this side effect of kissing and touching on the stairway leading up to the second floor rooming house Dorothy’s mother ran in downtown Williamson, West Virginia. Dorothy did tell me Walton had told her he was uncomfortable walking home after previous times together and that she had let him get a little closer to come to some mysterious conclusion that would make walking home more comfortable for him. Dorothy was a compassionate person. I think I was conceived as a result of the joining of compassion and passion. I’m rather proud of that tiny sperm that apparently had serious obstacles to overcome to reach its goal. It might explain why I’m such a strong woman.