I’m just happy to be here,’ is a common cliché, tossed off by polite guests. But David Ellison really is just happy to be here. Here’s why...
One month before I was supposed to be born, my umbilical cord ruptured. When my distraught dad arrived at the Catholic hospital, the doctor warned him, “There’s no hope for your child, and you better pray for your wife.”
I was born by emergency cesarean section. The physician took one look at me and baptized me on the spot, convinced I would soon perish. A nurse later did, too. (All told, I’ve been baptized three times!)
As mom finally woke up, nearly delirious from blood loss and anesthesia, she asked the nurse about me. “It was a boy,” she replied.
My mom collapsed on the pillow and grieved, believing that, in using the past tense, “It WAS a boy,” the nurse had put my death as tenderly as possible.