A footnote to today’s prompt that I will hopefully be able to tie in with my response, either way, it’s what motivates me to write tonight. It’s just past 10 pm this evening (8/15/25) as I type this. This time 49 years ago, my family was heartbroken at the passing of my dad, a few days earlier on 8/12/76, and about a month before his 61st birthday. We were about to leave the Donahue Funeral Parlor in Upper Darby when my wife’s water bag broke with the first of our four children. We were young twenty-year-olds who thought we knew more than we probably did, to be honest.
Like a scene from a Keystone Kops film, my entire family was both transfixed and frantically distracted as I rushed my wife to the hospital. My good friend Bob and my brother Larry, like a scene from The Three Stooges, were debating who would drive and how fast, until I insisted on Bob driving us to Riddle Memorial Hospital. I might add that they should name a wing of the hospital after our family, as we certainly helped fund it back then. That, along with the Riddle Ale House across the street.
Most of my seven siblings’ children were born there. To be exact, at least twenty-one of my nieces and nephews were born there. A tradition was that after visiting and congratulating the happy couple, we would take the husband, much to the chagrin of the person who actually gave birth, over to the Riddle Ale House for a celebratory drink or two.
That particular night, I was sent home around 11:30 pm, as the doctor said, since it’s your first child, your wife, in all likelihood, wouldn’t give birth until the next morning. Heh! They didn’t know how determined my wife was after carrying our daughter through the extremely hot summer of 1976. My whole family that night stayed at Mom’s house, as the burial mass and burial were in the morning. Sorry! I had to pause in reflection on reading that sentence without Dad.
So, all my brothers and brothers-in-law slept in the attic bedroom, and the conversation was focused on my excitement of becoming a father and some of the joys, sorrows, and challenges that one’s like tonight for me had presented. My dad was my best friend, mentor, and confidant. It was around 1 am on 8/16/76 when I headed into the hospital, calling my wife’s only brother from another mother, Steve, who wanted to know what was going on and decided to take a cab to sit with me. Upon arriving at the hospital, a short time after me, he said Danno, “I’ll keep watch. “You’d better get some rest, as tomorrow is going to be a long day, and you hardly slept well these past few days.
I was stretched out on a couch in the Father’s Room at the hospital when I was awakened by the doctor trying to congratulate him on the birth of a healthy baby girl with a full head of hair. He quickly raised his hands to wave the doctor off and pointed at me, saying, “No! I am just the mother’s brother; he’s the father. Hey, Danno, this is for you!”
Marie was born at 3:30 AM, and she was the most beautiful baby, with wide eyes and a head full of dark hair that the nurses would later adorn with a pink ribbon. She was so full of life! I remember laughing as I joined the nurses in the now-quiet hospital nursery while they weighed and documented her. They gently held her arms in the crib as she began to walk hand-in-hand across the table. Afterward, they swaddled her and placed her in the crib under infrared lighting to prevent jaundice. She holds a special place in our family’s heart for bringing so much joy to a family that desperately needed it.
I often comment to those who tell me they are expecting or have just had their first child that all the things you thought were important before suddenly become irrelevant and unimportant, which they usually agree with. I quickly add, “And take lots of pictures, as it all goes by so fast!”
Footnote: Bob, my late brother, Larry is next to our dad in the above top right-hand picture. The top left and center are pictures of both my wife and me, pictured with my late brother-in-law Steve. The bottom images are those of our children and our daughter, Marie, through the years.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARIE!
Point to Ponder: Never pray for a boy or a girl; pray for a healthy baby. As a proud father of both boys and girls, and now a grandfather to four boys and four girls, I wouldn’t trade or change anyone of them. I often tell my grandchildren the same thing I would tell our kids, that I would take a bullet to protect any one of them, and I love them all equally!
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