He was due in May.
He basically fell out of his mother.The doctor wanted badly to air lift him to Atlanta, but it was during a raging storm, and nobody was going anywhere by air.
So, his mother was left at the local hospital, and my brother, the nineteen year old terrified father, followed the ambulance down to Georgia Baptist.
My nephew weighed two pounds and ten ounces. Twenty-nine years ago there were no tinier babies that survived often. In fact, babies his size and at his developmental stage many times didn't survive without severe, lifetime repercussions.
My brother had picked out a boys name, naming him after our grandfather. We were already calling him John or Johnny.
But the next day my brother tearfully announced he would not name the baby John because "I can't lose him twice." So he named the baby after both my father and the baby's mother's father.
The first time I saw Eddie he was in the 'fetal ward', not yet considered a 'baby'. The contraption he was in looked like a fish tank. I couldn't touch him, but I held my hand up to the glass. His leg was the same size as my finger. He had long, clear hair all over his body.
I left, feeling very sorrowful. I did not see how something this tiny, this - unformed - could survive outside in this world. He just wasn't ready.
But survive he did.
The doctors said they had no idea about developmental problems he might have. He could seem perfectly normal until school started, for instance, and then have learning disabilities. Nobody knew for sure. But they discharged him at just under five pounds -in May - when he should have been considering whether to make an appearance from the womb.
He was always tiny. The smallest child in his preschool class, the smallest child in first grade. He once confided in me when was about six, that he was afraid he would be the smallest man in the world when he grew up. I assured him he was already bigger than the smallest man, and told him about Tom Thumb.
He had a very heavy southern accent, so we knew he'd be all right. There were never any learning disabilities, he's always been extremely bright.
His baby teeth had no enamel, so the back ones had to be replaced with ugly metal caps, but his permanents came in fine.
As an adult, he has a hearing impairment. But so does his mother, and her mother. The doctor says it's a double whammy.
He now has a little boy, himself. He weighed in close to nine pounds, and is almost two years old.
My nephew is a strong young man who grew to about five feet nine inches, I think. That's not so bad when you start out at seventeen inches.
I love him very much. I tell him he is really my first child because he spent many, many hours with us.
He works hard, he's a good guy, and he can do anything he wants to do.
But he'll always be a baby I can hold in one hand, up next to my heart.
Happy Birthday, Eddie.
HERE HE IS AT AGE SEVEN MONTHS:
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