A Decade for Lilly

Sometime before sunset today, the Sun was clearly visible not as an object you can't look at directly, but a large orange disk, distinct but not too bright, as if someone had painted it on the sky. Such mellowed-out Suns are fairly common right at sunset, but this was unusual in that it was still about 30 minutes till sunset, so the ball was hanging fairly high. It had been cloudy most of the day, but had cleared up somewhat by afternoon.

I was out driving around with Lilly at that moment, who said, "Cool!" Lilly has now seen ten trips around the Sun. I looked around recently for some written description of her birth back in 1997, but I don't seem to have created any. She was born at the former Prentice Women's Hospital in the Streeterville adjoining downtown Chicago -- just last month a new building replaced the one she was born in, a Bertrand Goldberg designed-structure. He did the corncob-like Marina Towers not far away, and his fascination with roundness extended to the windows of the old Prentice, which are oval. Unfortunately, the old Prentice seems doomed. Probably I should take Lilly down there sometime soon, while I can still point to a building and say, "You were born there." (More on Goldberg here.)

A number of attendants were crowding around when Lilly was born, and one of them said "code green," which I suspected was a good thing -- later I heard her Apgar was 9 -- but my view was obstructed, and for a few moments no one bothered to mentioned whether we had a son or daughter. So much for the scripted "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" I had to ask, and was told. An echo of the amazement of that moment lingers even now.

Lilly, May 2002