Summary:\u00a0 Marie feels fear after the birth of her son, Joseph. Can she hold him forever?<\/p>\n
Rating: G<\/p>\n
Word Count: 764<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Second Son<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cPush!\u201d<\/p>\n Marie pushed, and then she heard a cry.\u00a0 Was the baby all right?<\/p>\n \u201cCongratulations, you have a son,\u201d the doctor said.<\/p>\n A son!\u00a0 Marie remembered her first son who had died about five years ago right after he was born.\u00a0 She had heard him cry, and then he was gone.\u00a0 She never even got to see his face.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me see him.\u201d\u00a0 Marie reached out her arms.<\/p>\n \u201cI need to wash him first.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease I want to see my son!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust a moment, Mrs. Cartwright.\u201d<\/p>\n A few minutes later the doctor placed a small bundle wrapped in a red baby blanket into her arms.\u00a0 She gazed at her baby son\u2019s face and smiled.\u00a0 His body felt small and fragile.\u00a0 Sweet little Joseph.\u00a0 She and Ben had already agreed if the baby was a boy his name would be Joseph Francis.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a very healthy little boy.\u201d<\/p>\n Marie felt sadness that he would never know his brother who had died.\u00a0 At least he had his brothers Adam and Hoss to grow up with.\u00a0 Marie also felt fear.\u00a0 What if she lost this baby too?\u00a0 She held him close to her.\u00a0 Maybe she would be the only one to hold him so that she could keep him safe.\u00a0 She would always watch over him closely.<\/p>\n She noticed the doctor leave the bedroom and return with Ben.\u00a0 Her dear husband had such a proud smile on his face as he sat down on the bed beside her.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, Joseph.\u201d\u00a0 Ben gazed into the baby\u2019s face.\u00a0 \u201cWelcome to this world.\u00a0 You have two parents who love you very much, and two older brothers who are waiting excitedly downstairs to see you.\u201d<\/p>\n And there was another brother who was watching from Heaven.\u00a0 Sweet little Joseph was such a tiny baby.\u00a0 She continued to hold him close to her.<\/p>\n \u201cMay I hold him?\u201d\u00a0 Ben asked.<\/p>\n Marie carefully answered, \u201cNo I want to keep holding him.\u201d<\/p>\n She saw disappointment in his dark eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u00a0 I keep remembering my first son.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t even get to touch him.\u00a0 Right now I just want to continue holding little Joseph.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to bring the boys up to see him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n The baby made a soft cooing sound as Marie watched Ben leave, and then return with 12-year-old Adam and 6-year-old Hoss.\u00a0 Both boys smiled when they looked into their baby brother\u2019s face.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen will he be big enough to play with us?\u201d\u00a0 Hoss asked.<\/p>\n Adam replied, \u201cIt\u2019s going to be awhile.\u00a0 He\u2019s only a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben said, \u201cI\u2019m sure in a couple of years he\u2019ll be running around with you two.\u201d<\/p>\n Marie thought about Joseph someday being old enough to follow his brothers about as they did chores and other things.\u00a0 Right now he was just a little baby she held close in her arms.\u00a0 If only he could stay there.<\/p>\n A little while later Marie was alone in the bedroom while she sat in the rocking chair with the baby still in her arms.\u00a0 She had fed him, and now he was fast asleep.\u00a0 Hop Sing came and quietly changed the bedding.\u00a0 She sensed he was aware of the fear she had of losing another baby.<\/p>\n Hop Sing stood in the middle of the room with dirty blankets in his arms.\u00a0 \u201cMrs. Cartwright afraid.\u00a0 Not good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just feel very protective of him.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to lose a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother lost first baby.\u00a0 A boy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe did?\u00a0 I\u2019m so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n Marie knew little about his family.\u00a0 She knew his father was here in Virginia City, and he had relatives who lived San Francisco as well as back in China.\u00a0 Only a couple of times she had heard him mention something about brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n \u201cThen second baby born,\u201d Hop Sing continued.\u00a0 \u201cMy oldest sister.\u00a0 My mother always hold baby.\u00a0 No one else hold her.\u201d<\/p>\n His mother went through the same thing.\u00a0 She also knew the pain and the fear.<\/p>\n \u201cOne day someone tell her someday baby be too big to hold.\u201d<\/p>\n It was true.\u00a0 Someday little Joseph would be too big to hold.\u00a0 He would eventually be old enough to follow his big brothers around.\u00a0 The time would eventually come when he would be old enough to help his father and brothers with the running of the ranch.\u00a0 Marie realized she had been selfish for not letting Ben hold his own son.\u00a0 Adam and Hoss probably wanted to hold him too.\u00a0 All right of course they all could.\u00a0 She knew she would always be watching over him.<\/p>\n ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n Written for the Mother’s Day Writing Challenge 2021<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summary:\u00a0 Marie feels fear after the birth of her son, Joseph. Can she hold him forever?<\/p>\n Rating: G<\/p>\n Word Count: 764<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12349,"featured_media":36483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[23,1008,30,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama","category-family","category-prequels","category-challenges","wpcat-23-id","wpcat-1008-id","wpcat-30-id","wpcat-40-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/second-son-image.jpg?fit=173%2C217&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}