Another thoroughly predictable moment in Biv Birthday History

I went home for a looong time. It was supposed to be a short stay, just for a family friend’s bridal shower, but then it was Bug’s birthday the next weekend. I altered my schedule severely so I could be there for the baby’s big One. I had to beg my brother to hold the party on Saturday so I could be there for it.

Then, on the first Saturday, while women crowded our house with linen and perfume and enflamed hair, we got a phone call from Lois. Baby Girl was supposed to be the star attraction at the shower – she’s the flower girl for the wedding – and she was conspicuously missing.

Turns out my brother Cripps had run to the doctor’s office with chest pains. He got to the hospital where they promptly shoved a tube in his chest to re-inflate a collapsed lung. A COLLAPSED LUNG!

How did it happen, the clamourers wonder… The doctors answer, “He’s tall, thin and a smoker.” No, seriously, that’s all they told us. He had numerous x-rays and tests to make sure it wasn’t something else (what else would it be? Free-floating glass shards?) and could find nothing.

I could tell you many many things about the horrors of my week home… Oh, god, many… But I will tell you this: by the end of the week my niece got in the habit of running at me like a euphoric bull and leaping into my arms so I could kiss her kiss her kiss her and tell her how beautiful she is. And Bug eased into me, from uncontrollable giggles to exhausted sweaty sleep on my shoulder.

The tale ends thusly: Cripps came home after a three-day stay in the hospital. He’s unable to lift his own children, but getting stronger. The party magically moved from Saturday to Sunday to accommodate my other brothers. I missed it.