When I was born to Helen and Jeremiah Land, in 1951, my lungs refused to kick in.
My father wasn't in the delivery room or even in the building; the halls of Wilson Hospital were close and short, and Dad had gone out to pace in the damp September wind. He was praying, rounding the block for the fifth time, when the air quickened. He opened his eyes and discovered he was running - sprinting across the grass toward the door.
"How'd you know?" I adored this story, made him tell it all the time.
"God told me you were in trouble."
"Out loud? Did you hear Him?"
"Nope, not out loud. But He made me run, Reuben. I guess I figured it out on the way."
I had, in fact, been delivered some minutes before. My mother was dazed, propped against soggy pillows, unable to comprehend what Dr. Animas Nokes was telling her.
"He still isn't breathing, Mrs. Land."
"Give him to me!"
To this day I'm glad Dr. Nokes did not hand me over on demand. Tired as my mother was, who knows when she would've noticed? Instead he laid me down and rubbed me hard with a towel.. He pounded my back; he rolled me over and massaged my chest. He breathed air into my mouth and nose -- my chest rose, fell with a raspy whine, stayed fallen. Years later Dr. Nokes would tell my brother Davy that my delivery still disturbed his sleep. He's never seen a child with such swampy lungs.
When Dad skidded into the room, Dr Nokes was sitting on the side of the bed holding my mother's hand. She was wailing -- I picture her as an old woman here, which is funny, since I was never to see her as one --and old Nokes was attempting to ease her grief. It was unavoidable, he was saying; nothing could be done; perhaps it was for the best.
I was lying uncovered on a metal table across the room.
Dad lifted me gently. I was very clean from all that rubbing, and I was gray and beginning to cool. A little clay boy is what I was.
"Breathe," Dad said.
I lay in his arms.
Dr Nokes said "Jeremiah, it has been twelve minutes."
"Breathe!" The picture I see is of Dad, brown hair short and wild, giving this order as if he expected noting but odedience.
Dr. Nokes approached him. "Jeremiah. There would be brain damage now. His lungs can't fill."
Dad leaned down, laid me back on the table, took off his jacket and wrapped me in it -- a black canvas jacket with a quilted lining, I have it still. He left my face uncovered.
"Sometimes," said Dr. Nokes, "there is something unworkable in one of the organs. A ventricle that won't pump correctly. A liver that poisons the blood." Dr. Nokes was a kindly and reasonable man. "Lungs that can't expand to take in air. In these cases," said Dr. Nokes, "we must trust in the Almighty to do what is best." At which Dad stepped across and smote Dr. Nokes with a right hand, so that the doctor went down and lay on his side with his pupils unfocused. As Mother cried out, Dad turned back to me, a clay child wrapped in a canvas coat, and said in a normal voice, "Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe."... excerpted not only from Leif Enger's book PEACE LIKE A RIVER, but also from the book AT THE STILL POINT: A LITERARY GUIDE TO PRAYER IN ORDINARY TIME by Sarah Arthur
