Blue Light and Milk

While it doesn't seem important now that I can't remember the exact date or even the month it happened, it seems significant that I was nearing the end of a medical fellowship and that the weather then was clear and cold. And since my son was about 5 months old, the special night related here must have been in early winter, perhaps January. Yet while his age and the time of year are related to the quality and simple events of that night, it is what I learned about filial love and fatherhood that remains so precise and crisp in my memory. And it was a long time ago: That little boy is now 30 years old, my age when this all happened, and at 60, I have since doubled the years of my life. The symmetry in our age changes certainly enhances the recollection.

This near-magical adventure began at about 3:00 a.m., when I was awakened by my infant son's crying. So that he wouldn't disturb my wife or our 2-year-old daughter, I quickly left my warm bed for the cooler air of our apartment and the sad baby's side. His frustrated, inarticulate tears were traced to a chilled, wet diaper and a presumption of hunger. Lifting him out of his crib, I rested his sobbing little body on the left side of my chest and, with his moistened diaper and buttocks secure on my forearm, plopped barefoot on uncarpeted floors into the kitchen. With the dexterity of early adulthood, I was able to open our refrigerator door with my right hand, find one of the …