I guess you could call me a word guy. My wife, Deb, can confirm this. I like words; I like reading. I like listening to my selections from Audible.

From time to time, Deb helps me edit and proofread my book projects for various publishers.

As she is reading a chapter, she might say, “Is ‘coffee mug’ hyphenated?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s an open compound. Check Merriam-Webster eleventh. If it’s not hyphenated in Merriam, it’s not hyphenated.” I use the term “Merriam-Webster eleventh” a lot, maybe every day.

A friend of Deb’s gave us a book—a memoir by a woman who gave birth to her second daughter in 2010. Author Kelle Hampton relates in the first chapter that as soon as she saw her baby’s face, she knew with certainty that her daughter had Down syndrome. Kelle had had no prenatal testing. She was thirty-one, an age when the chances of giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome is around 1 in 1,000.

But Kelle knew. And in her beautifully written memoir, Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected, readers feel her profound pain on the day of Nelle’s birth.

I’m still reading the book. It knocks me out every time I pick it up. Every sentence is beautifully written, and, like I said, I’m a word guy.

The book begins:

I turned thirty-one on December 29, 2009. My husband and I went to dinner with friends the evening before, and as we left, toting our leftovers in Styrofoam boxes and marveling at my very round pregnant belly that seemed to have grown a bit since dinner, I noticed the welcoming glow of the nearby bookstore…

Joy Elizabeth is eleven weeks old. These first eleven weeks have been wonderful. During the first ten weeks, she slowly gained weight and some length. Her 0-3 month clothes are getting a little snug on her tiny body. We have retired the outfit that we call Hello Kitty Clouds—a white sleeper that has cartoon clouds that kinda look like Hello Kitty. The outfit seems just a little too tight now.

At week eleven, though, something amazing happened.

During the first ten weeks, Joy’s vocal sounds consisted of breathing, crying (a rare occurrence that only happens when she is very hungry), and grunting (when she is filling up her diaper).

But on week eleven, Joy started cooing (I’m calling it talking).

Daughter Andi was holding Joy, their faces just a few inches apart, when Joy said, “Ah-goo, ah-goo.”

“Did you hear that, Deb? Joy is talking,” I said. “Words are coming from her tiny mouth. Oh my goodness.”

“Let me see,” said Deb, who came over to witness the event.

“Deb, Joy looked right into Andi’s eyes and said, ‘Ah-goo’!” I said.

We each took turns holding the baby that afternoon, trying to elicit more baby talk. Eventually, over a period of days, she repeated her assertion to anyone who would listen: “Ah-goooo!”

When Cathy, Joy’s OT from First Steps stopped by two days ago to assess Joy, she said, “So Mom and Dad, what is going on with Joy?”

I could have mentioned Joy’s weight gain or her ability to roll over and raise her head. I could have talked about her good appetite. I could have mentioned that Joy can bring her fist to her mouth and bring her hands together. But I didn’t.

“She says ‘Ah-goo’ now. All the time. I’m sure she will say it while you are here,” I said.

“Aww,” said Cathy. “I love that word.”

I knew it, I thought. It’s a word. It might not be in Merriam-Webster eleventh edition, but it’s a word. She just said so.

I no longer work for UPS. I worked at UPS for many years because the benefits were fantastic for part-time union workers—full medical insurance for me and my family, including dental, vision, mental health, as well as tuition assistance and a 401(k). I did my freelance editorial work during the day. I worked at UPS at night (around four hours a night), mostly sorting boxes (about one million boxes a year).

I worked at UPS until I no longer could. I now have a ten-week-old baby (Joy Elizabeth) who will need significant and costly medical interventions in the coming years, so we are working on getting health insurance through healthcare.gov (Obamacare). We are optimistic.

When I would set off for my job at UPS, I did not put on a brown UPS uniform. I worked in the hub, a vast, noisy, dirty, factory-like building, away from the public. I would put on my crappiest clothes—my work t-shirts and jeans were old and full of holes—and head to Earth City. By the end of my four-hour shift, I was dirty and sweaty. If my shift was 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., I might stop at the gas station and purchase a large can of Budweiser. I would put $2.24 on the glass counter, call out “Hi, Bashir! How are you?” and head to my car.

One night, I stood at the counter in my distressed shirt and jeans, with my can of Bud and a handful of change. I was quickly picking through the collection of quarters and dimes in my hand. I had set aside ten dimes and was picking through the rest of the change, looking for five quarters.

“Here you go, bud,” said a voice to my left. Two dollar bills were suddenly thrust into my field of view.

I looked up. A bearded man in a baseball cap was holding out money to me.

“What?” I said.

“Take it. I’ve been there, man. It’s ok.”

“Really, sir, it’s not necessary.”

“I insist. Just take it.”

I laughed. I look like a homeless person.

“Thank you,” I said to the man. I took the money.

This story sort of reminds me of a segment I saw on the CBS Evening News. A wealthy businessman in Pittsburgh goes around the city around Christmastime and hands out hundred-dollar bills (around $100,000 total). A camera crew followed him one day as he gave out the Benjamins to unsuspecting shoppers at Goodwill, Dollar General, et cetera.

“Here you go, hun. This is a hundred dollars from ‘Secret Santa,’” says the businessman.

The people take the cash and start crying.

“Sir, your generosity and compassion are so amazing,” says one lady.

Every person who appeared in that segment cried. Some people I know would say that those people were shedding happy tears.

I have never thought that happy tears are all that happy. I have never shed them. I suppose that others have experienced happy tears. But for me, tears always reveal secret sorrows, regrets, hurt, or grief.

I have cried. I cried when I learned of Joy’s diagnosis: the prenatal blood test that showed with almost 100 percent certainty that she would be born with trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). I grieved for the baby we had been expecting—a “typically developing child,” as they say at the doctor’s office.

I have also cried on really good days. The day Joy was born was such a day. Everyone seemed to be crying tears of joy, or happy tears.

I held Joy on her birthday. I whispered to her the lyrics from Stevie Wonder:

Isn’t she lovely 
Isn’t she wonderful 
Isn’t she precious 
Less than one minute old 
I never thought through love we’d be 
Making one as lovely as she 
But isn’t she lovely made from love 

I cried. I was so happy to have Joy in my life. It felt so wonderful to hold her. “I love you so much,” I said to her.

But my tears were not tears of happiness. In the midst of my joy, I cried tears of regret and profound grief. Some of that regret and pain are difficult to explain. I think tears often help us express emotions that our lips cannot.

I remember the joy in holding Joy and touching her tiny hands. I instantly remembered the time twenty-six years ago when I held my daughter Kat for the first time. I remembered the day twenty-three years ago when I held baby Emily. Both of my daughters are alive and well and are out changing the world. Daughter Kat is working on her PhD at Marquette. Daughter Emily is working and going to school.

But I cried, I think, because I miss those baby girls. I regret not being a better father. I’m sorry that I was often selfish and distracted. I want more memories of that time. I want better memories. I grieve for the memories I can no longer remember.

Joy is asleep in her crib ten feet away. I want her to wake up so that I can hold her. I want to hold her and shed happy tears, not the tears I’m shedding this morning.

A few weeks ago, my friend Jill gave me an end table that was otherwise headed for the Dumpster. It is composed of particle board covered with wood pattern veneer. I repaired the drawer tracks that had originally been installed with staples. I sanded the top, drawer fronts, and sides, applied primer, and painted it forest green (I had some leftover Japanese paint found in a Dumpster). I found some unmatched drawer knobs in the basement. I screwed them on.

It turned out ok, and I might put it in my Airbnb apartment. I sent a picture to my friend Jill. She texted: “I want it back.”

I texted: “$65. LOL.”

I enjoyed working on that end table for a few hours. I liked watching YouTube videos that explained how to paint wood veneer and particle board. I liked turning some junk into something that can now pass as a shabby chic end table.

It made me think we could turn some of our eclectic furniture into something more. Maybe we could restore the round table we inherited from Deb’s apartment: the table that was “restored” by a previous owner. It is a solid wood table that was updated by gluing wood pattern vinyl flooring to the top. We keep it covered with a table cloth.

When Deb came home from the hospital with Joy, I moved the table upstairs to our bedroom so we could eat meals at the bedside. Deb had developed a serious infection after her C-section. At first, she needed help walking to the bathroom. She eventually needed help sitting up, sitting down, getting in and out of bed. Her pain was so severe one night that we ended up in the emergency room at Mercy.  We dropped off Joy with Deb’s cousin at midnight. Mimi was up and down all night with Joy. She was wonderful.

The table is just large enough for two people. We ate our meals bedside. We had several meals from Time for Dinner, which were generously given to us by Deb’s Bunco group.

That table is back downstairs. I removed the sheet vinyl. I sanded off the adhesive and old stains. And I applied two coats of polyurethane. Five hundred Scrabble tiles arrived from Amazon yesterday. (Scrabble is a big deal in our family.) The plan is to cover the 24-inch round table top with Scrabble tiles—words, phrases, and names, each tile piece glued to the surface with a drop of super glue. I will then cover the table with a 24-inch round piece of glass.

Late last night, I picked three tiles for the first word. I said to Deb, “I’m going to test this super glue. I’m going to glue one word to the table and see how it looks.”

“You are going to glue J-O-Y to the table, aren’t you?”

“How did you know that?”

“I just did,” Deb said.

So this morning, JOY is permanently glued to the very center of that table. But today MARY will be added, as well as ANDI, KAT, EMILY, DEB. I might add some high-value words, like QUIXOTIC. But I know that most of the words will have special meaning to our family: LOVE, HOME, MR. BEAR, BOOSHIE, HALLMARK, PEGGY, ASHLEY, KATIE, CHIP, KATHLEEN, SARAH, DAVE, MIKE, ENVELOPE, and many others.

Yes, JOY is placed at the center of the table. Some days it feels like Joy Elizabeth is the center of the universe, the center of our lives. But really, the center is simply ‘joy.’

“Oh and by the way, my name is Deb and I’m 43.” This is how Deb ended her first email to me in 2017. Yes, we met online. And so I met Deb when she was 43. I was 55 at the time. Deb turned 44 a few weeks later. I turned 55 a week later.

We moved in together on April 1, 2018. We signed a lease on a little house on Big Bend in Crestwood. It’s close to Deb’s old apartment, which was close to her church. It’s centrally located, not far from the city. It’s less than 30 minutes away from Webster, from Chesterfield, from Maryland Heights, from Cottleville, from St. Charles—from the people and places that are important to us.

On April 12, Deb asked me to go out and get a pregnancy test. I said ok. I came back with one that costs a dollar.

A few minutes later, she came out of the bathroom, scratching her head. “According to the directions,” said Deb, “the plus sign means pregnant.”

“Here. Let me see,” I said. “Maybe you peed on it too long or something. I’ll go get another one at the store.”

Twenty minutes later, Deb opened the five-dollar Equate brand pregnancy test.

“Follow the instructions this time,” I said. “The chance of getting pregnant at age forty-four is one-point-six percent. We researched this, babe.”

Five minutes later, Deb said, “I think I’m pregnant.”

“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” I said. I went all out this time. I got Clear Blue Easy at Walmart. It’s the best. And it’s $12. If you are pregnant, it says PREGNANT on the tiny screen.

So we gleefully accepted the results of Clear Blue Easy. We started visiting the OB on a regular schedule.

We also accepted the risk of a genetic abnormality. At age 44, a woman has a 4% chance of giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome, whereas at age 30 it is 0.01%.

A few months later, a genetic blood test showed that the baby inside Deb had a 94.6% of having Down syndrome (trisomy 21). Along with Deb’s ultrasound findings, there was no doubt. The doc also mentioned (on accident and against our wishes) the sex of the baby.

Joy was born on December 10, 2018. She really did bring joy into our world that day.

My name is Joyce Elizabeth McConnell. But everyone calls me Joy. Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

Beatitudes

by Mike McConnell

Our family attends 11 am mass, so typically it’s not difficult to arrive on time. But yesterday we overslept. We ran out of the house at 11:02, and we entered the church at 11:11.

Father was preaching about the Beatitudes. He quoted:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

I looked down and smiled at the hungry little girl in my arms, my meek and hungry little girl, who sucked on her bottle and gazed at everything and everyone around her.

Sisters Andi and Mary smiled at her, wanting to have their turns at holding and feeding her. But I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Ten-week-old Joy looked at the tall ceilings and stained glass with bemused curiosity.

I looked at my wife, Deb. We smiled and understood that we are blessed indeed.