Baby Talk 

By TAD BARTIMUS

The baby behind me on the airplane cried all the way across America. In our heads, many of us reacted like typical travelers: "Oh Lordy, can't that mother shut that kid up?!" 

But then, as it went on and on, we came to empathize with the poor woman traveling alone. Maybe the baby was sick? Maybe it was cutting teeth? Maybe it was from a foreign country and this was the middle of its night?

Who knows. Perhaps the infant was just reacting to the usual commercial airliner torture. Perhaps we ALL should have been screaming about no leg room, uncomfortable seats, inedible food. After all, we're just babies trying to act like grownups.

Near the flight's end I took the baby in my arms so the mother could go to the rest room. Through none of my efforts, the infant suddenly stopped crying and fell asleep. I looked down at it's tear-stained face, its tiny clinched fist, that clichŽ of a rosebud mouth, and I realized how perfect it was. As perfect as anything gets on this earth.

Where was that mother? I began to worry about what would happen if the plane crashed. How could we save it? So helpless, so trusting. By the time the mother returned I'd imagined an entire rescue scenario around this baby I hated to relinquish.

The next day, waiting in the repair department of a jewelry store, I eavesdropped on a recently engaged couple talking to a sales clerk:

"It will be a small wedding, only our families and good friends, probably fewer than a hundred people," the healthy, outdoorsy-looking girl said, gazing adoringly at the young man with the backpack.

"It was love at first sight," he volunteered, looking longingly back at her with big brown cow eyes. "I knew instantly she was going to be the mother of my children."

Maybe not.

Still in the throes of young love, these soon-to-be-newlyweds will count on children as a sure bet. After all, look around us: there are babies everywhere. It's natural to think all we have to do to get their own is get to work at making one.

That afternoon, over tea with a friend who'd somehow sneaked up on middle age without my realizing it, I listened as she poured out her heart along with the Earl Grey.

"We've tried so hard," she said, tears pooling in her sad eyes. "We're not sure why I can't get pregnant, the doctors only have theories. We're going to start the fertility thing, but it costs so much and we're feeling like we're on an emotional roller coaster. Maybe we should just adopt."

I mumbled words of reassurance and comfort: "Don't worry, relax, I'm sure it will be fine, you're both still young."

But that isn't really true; he is 45, she's 40. Time is running out to conceive a biological child. This hereditary act, so taken for granted when we're young, strong and full of hope, can crash on genetic rocks without any warning or definitive explanation. Cells go haywire, babies don't come. Infertility can be the inconsolable disappointment of a marriage, the heartbreak of a life.

That night, in the middle of dinner, my companion suddenly said: "Want to see pictures of my grandson?"

This proud grandfather had half a dozen at the ready in his briefcase. It was obvious from their frayed corners that I wasn't the first friend who'd ooh-ed and ahh-ed over two-month-old William Roy. He was a cute baby, even at one hour old with his head mostly obscured by a hospital cap. But the best part of sharing the pictures was seeing his paternal grandparents, both in their 80s, FINALLY welcoming their first grandchild.

"We'd gotten to the point where we thought it wasn't going to happen," said grandpa, the father of four sons. He got this strange look on his face, then held out his hands, palms up, a six inches apart. He was gazing off into the distance.

"A grandchild changes everything," he said, standing still as though he was holding something in his outstretched hands. "I thought we'd come to the end. Now the future is out there beyond us, beyond even our children, past where any of us can see."

"I can't tell you," he said, his voice choking, "what this baby means to me."

He didn't have to. All anyone has to do is look into the limpid eyes of a baby. Any baby. It's all there.

I telephoned my friend that night and told her –this time with a lot more conviction – that it wasn't too late. She told me she was determined, one way or another, to be a parent. 

The next time I hear a baby crying it will be music to my ears.

© 2000 The Women Syndicate

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