A bag of old baby cards

My parents have evidently been cleaning out the deepest darkest holes of their house, because last time I saw my mother, she brought along a bag of cards from when my father was born. I had this vision of my children’s future (or maybe my grandchildren’s?)—Mama and Shari and I sat there sorting through these 1940s baby cards, little cherubs every one—while I kept thinking about the bag of cards I saved from when both Will and Laura were born up in a box in the attic. Lord. Mama said Daddy wanted to clean it out of the house, but I don’t think any of us could stand the idea of throwing it away—but what on earth can you do with it either? It would’ve been interesting if we’d had it when our babies were born. Maybe I’ll save it and make some kind of collage for Matt and Shari if they have a baby.

I’d always heard this family story that my grandmother really really really wanted a girl when Daddy was born—he was their third son. In fact she and my grandfather had four boys, and never had a girl, but the story goes that she used to dress Daddy like one to make up for it. I always thought this was some sort of rumor, that surely it wasn’t true, but then we found a mock-up of a birth announcement for Esther Gay that Nana had written saved in the same bag along with all the congratulations cards for their newest boy:



I asked Mama if that was why I was named Gay, but she says not, that she’d never heard of this, and in fact she hadn’t seen this particular scrap of paper until we dug it out. Poor Daddy. Maybe that was a true story.