It was late afternoon, and Merial rushed home after work to check on my mother after a doctor's appointment that the family thought for sure was cancer.
She rushed to the kitchen to find my mother in her rocking chair, chain-smoking, pale, and seemingly in shock, "Mom, Mom, what did the doctor say?" Merial asked; it took a few agonizing minutes, and then my mother said, "I'm pregnant."
Mother and Merial sat there, cigarettes burned down to ashes, and another would be lit. Their tea grew cold, and so my birth was announced to a thundering silence.
It is safe to say there was no joy in Whoville that night.
