A is for Apollo 8 - by Nan Brooks

                                                    Earth from Apollo 8, Christmas Eve 1968
 

I’ll get to the Apollo 8 thing, but it will take a minute… My younger son was born on December 20 and on Christmas Eve we were still in the hospital. In those days, mothers and babies stayed about a week after the birth to make sure everyone was OK. My baby was not OK; he had jaundice caused by a high bilirubin count caused in turn by a blood incompatibility. Research and practice eventually provided the causes and treatments for his conditions, but back then it was cause for deep concern. We were waiting for lab results to tell us if he would need a complete blood exchange to prevent damage to his brain.

So -it was Christmas Eve and there was a flu epidemic. It was two moms to a room then, and my roommate’s husband, thrilled to have a son and not a daughter (!), had come to visit while running a high fever. To say that I was anxious about all of the above is to understate my state. The television distracted me, as did phone calls home where my older son was decorating a lopsided last-one-on-the-lot tree that my mother had provided while my husband was working late. She was pretty cranky about the whole thing and demanded to know why I had to have a baby at Christmas. I had no answers for her, nor could I tell my toddler son when I would be home. Not exactly a festive time for our little family.

Television helped; there were carols and ballets and some pretty smart conversations on talk shows and I had the luxury of time to watch them all. The big thing on that Christmas Eve was Apollo 8, the first space mission when astronauts flew around the back of the moon. Would those three brave men emerge? Had the fancy calculations of “Houston”, as they called their earth-bound guides…would those calculations have worked or would the men be lost forever in that dark mystery out there? 

People stopped on the streets to watch through store windows as Walter Cronkite, bless him, narrated with his combined excitement and calm. I miss Walter Cronkite. The maternity ward was quiet because most mothers and babies had gone home, so the nurses gathered in my room to watch the TV. I held my fragile newborn baby while the nurses and CNAs piled on the bed with us. I remember a warm and reassuring hand on my shoulder – a nurse who understood why I was so anxious.

Suddenly, there was an astronaut’s voice, then the image of our beautiful blue planet in the dark dark dark of space. William Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell read to us all the creation story from Genesis. “To all of you on the good Earth,” said Lovell in closing.  After the terrible year of 1968, of sorrow and violence and the chaos of change, came the beautiful reminder that we are all, five billion of us, together on this Mother Earth. I wept with gratitude for the hope in those words and image.

The next morning our pediatrician called from his home; I could hear children playing in the background. “I just heard from the lab,” he said, “your baby’s bilirubin count is over 20.” That meant a blood exchange was required, so I asked when it would be done, given the holiday.

“It’s too late to do it now,” said the doctor. “his umbilical cord has dried and we can’t do an exchange.”

After a long pause, I said, “What should I pray for? Will he die?”

“Oh no,” said the doctor, “he won’t die. We know the bilirubin will spill over into his brain and stain parts of it. He may stop maturing at six months or six years or sixteen. If he stops at 16, he will be like most males. We will just have to wait and see.” And he chuckled. He was not a heartless man, far from it, and he was trying to cheer me up. I hope I wished him and his family a Merry Christmas.

Later I held my little baby boy and wept. And then I thought of the night before, of the nurse with her reassuring hand on my shoulder and the beautiful blue Earth on the television screen. I took hope. I decided that my beautiful boy would be fine. I would be watchful and he would be fine.

Indeed, he has never stopped maturing. He is gentle, compassionate, and brilliant. He has struggled all his life and not become bitter or mean despite bullying and mistreatment by professionals who should have known better. He is, like his older brother, one of my favorite people on the planet.

My theology has changed, but hope remains, even at the end of this year of sorrow and conflict.

Here is the Apollo 8 story from CBS:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL66BJdGQYw

May we all take heart as the Earth turns toward the growing light just past the winter solstice.