My mother, Phelps, and I were sitting on the porch on a beautiful summer day. It was around July. Since we lived it Ohio, it wasn’t oppressively hot, and was very comfortable for that time of year. We were comfortably relaxing on our front porch swing, when we saw a pregnant young lady walking our way, along with her boyfriend, Dwayne.
As they approached us, my mom eyed the pregnant young lady closely, and looked at me and said, “She’s carrying that baby awfully low.” Things like that didn’t really matter to me. My mom was always observing things that neither me nor my siblings paid much attention to. When the young girl, Cynthia, approached our house my mother yelled out to her. “Cynthia,” she asked, “when is your due date?”
Cynthia smiled and said, “Hello, Mrs. Heath. I’m not due for another month.”
My mother stood up and walked to the front porch stairs. She looked at Cynthia and said, “Baby, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you need to get to the hospital soon. That baby is on its way.”
She laughed and said, “No ma’am, I still have another month. The baby isn’t on its way.”
She looked at Cynthia’s boyfriend, Dwayne and said, “Son, I don’t care what you’ve been told but that baby is on the way. You need her to get to the hospital.”
Dwayne said respectfully, “We’re fine ma’am. We have a pretty good doctor, so I’m comfortable with the due date that he estimated.”
I think they might have thought that my mom was crazy. The waved good bye and continued down the street. They hadn’t gotten more than two houses down, when I heard Cynthia scream. Dwayne came running back toward our house and yelled, “Mrs. Heath, please help. I think Cynthia’s water just broke.”
Mama grinned as though as though she had won some type of victory, and disappeared inside for a minute, reappearing with a towel. As she bounded off the porch, I asked her, “How could you have possibly known she was going to deliver today?”
My mom only grinned and went to help. I just shook my head incredulously and watched patiently as Cynthia’s due date came one month early in the middle of the street.
