26 Years Ago

Time is a thief, and life marches on

It’s cold in Lexington today. You open the door to let the dogs out, and a crisp wind steals your breath and raises chill bumps on your arms. But it’s nothing like that Greenfield, Indiana day 26 years ago when the world welcomed Augustus Charles Willis, aka Baby Gus. Breath formed visible crystals, windows froze shut, and everything was still and silent when he was rushed by ambulance to St. Vincent’s NICU in Indianapolis.

His breath did not come so easily.

Twenty-six years later, Gus and I are going to watch the Super Bowl and drink bourbon together today. He’s always been Gus to me (sometimes AsparaGus, much to his dismay), but he goes by Augustus now. He was named after his paternal great-grandmother, Augusta (Grandma Gussie) and Augustus McCrae from Lonesome Dove. “Charles” came from my Grandpa Anderson, my uncle Chuck, my cousin Charlie, Gus’s paternal uncle Charley.

Gus didn’t like to be held as a baby. After being in a drug-induced coma for the first five weeks of his life, human touch was foreign and strange to him. But 26-year-old Augustus will roll his eyes when I get excited about seeing Taylor Swift in the Super Bowl crowd today, his sarcasm finely tuned. I’ll drink the bourbon that he brings from his place of employment after he gives well-rehearsed distillery tours all day. He can remember minute details about all things bourbon, all things cars, and all things mixed drinks. He’s always had that kind of brain, the one that absorbs and recalls everything. When he was little, it was whatever interested him in that moment: trains, roller coasters, video games, music. Brilliant beyond measure, he was often too shy to turn in his homework as a kid. I’d find it wadded up at the bottom of his backpack, and he’d tell me he didn’t want to walk to the front of the classroom to turn it in. But put him on a stage where he can act, sing, or perform comedy, and he steals the show.

His little sister texted me a photo from Tacoma, Washington of her adorable self and her adorable friends in the wee hours of the morning with the caption, LOVE YOU MOM. His older brother is in Mexico, riding motorcycles, watching birds, and shooting pool. His littlest brother is applying to be a botanist in Colorado.

It’s been over twenty years since they’ve been babies.

It’s also been just yesterday.

When I think about the life I lived as a suburban, hetero-married, Target-obsessed mother of four under five, when I believed in a god who would save my child and not others, it stands in sharp juxtaposition to the life I now lead as an unmarried, agnostic, social justice- and equality-centered lesbian with adult children scattered throughout this burning nation. But the one thing that never changes with the passage of time or changing life circumstances? My love for these four humans who came from me but who are uniquely and beautifully their own, independent selves.

What an honor it has been to be their mother.

In celebration of Gus’s 26th birthday—the year his prefrontal cortex becomes fully developed—here’s an essay I wrote and performed at the 2013 Listen To Your Mother show in Indianapolis.

Happy Birthday, Augustus. You are so very cherished.