At St. Davids Hospital in Austin, Tx is a chair.
It is a sturdy nondescript stainless steel chair that is the reserved place for fathers before
they are allowed into the O.B. surgery room.
The chair faces a wall with 3 sinks that have the knee levers so the surgeons can wash their hands without turning a faucet.
Above the sinks are shelves filled with medicines with 23-letter names in bottles and boxes and bags.
This is where I found myself last Thursday at 2:46 pm.
I had been in that chair before on December 8, 2004, when Cate was born.
And the thoughts that go through your mind when you are in that chair.
I wondered how many fathers to be contemplated all the hopes and fears that laid in the room behind the doors just to one side of the chair.
Did they say a prayer to be strong and not to get a head rush when they stood up, so
they would not crumple to the ground?
Or were they strong assured everything was going to be all right.
As I was lost in these thoughts, a voice jolted me out of my musings.
"Mr. Miller, are you ready to see your son?"
I followed the doctor through the doors.
At 3:08 p.m. Samuel Watterson Miller took his first breath.
I forgot all about the chair.
