THE BIRTH OF EMELIE CAVANAUGH PORTER & A WIFE I NEARLY LOSSED

Eve and Emilie Cavanaugh Porter- And a blood soaked room: It brings Focus.

My wife and I delivered Emilie Cavanaugh Porter prematurely, Aug 8, 2009: The day before my birthday. She is in the N I C U ward: Stable but serious.

My wife underwent blood tranfusions, and, at best, is fragile. I am blessed that my little family is safe-but precarious: A daughter struggling, a wife torn to work and compelled to rest.

 I am somber: My duties are clear-to live better and to do better.

 I am contrite: I look back at my life and see the debris of a man who lived so near to the edge for so long, working tireleslly, and, in my youth, living with some degree of heedlessness. I am not young and I wish I could live better NOW-that life’s lessons were not so dearly paid for in pain and grief.

 And yet from a blood soaked, spattered room at Good Sams where two of my girls fought for their lives, I saw, with clarity that, at 35, it’s better to have friends then enemies-to make peace-to seek reconciliation-and to take advice.

 My wife-exhausted, and my my daughter, fragile as brittle stalk, must live in this world and not feel the reprecussions of my life: My role is to provide and to love and to find peace. If peace means relieving myself of my pride and seeking reconciliation for the sake of my children and wife-then I will go a great distance to do so.