Saturday's child

Labor started on Friday but I was too young and stupid to know that's what it was. Hubby was working swing/afternoon/morning/mids. Sent him off to work and spent the afternoon alternately walking the hall, trying to sit but could not, discovered laying down was definitely not an option, instead stood at the kitchen counter doing crossword puzzles to pass the time.

He slept that night. I did not. Saturday morning we were hospital-bound at 6:30 AM.

She was born less than two hours later. The labor and delivery personnel at the base hospital were all amazed at the quick, easy birth.

Their words, not mine.

And that was probably the last easy thing involved for this darling girl.

Saturday's child works hard for a living. And she definitely has.

Spent the first year of her life just fighting to survive. The medical community wrote books about her.

Had her first job at nine, a daily babysitting gig after she got home from school, for a family of nurses in the neighborhood. Grammy dropped him off and Mommy picked him up a couple of hours later, after she finished her shift, and bought her groceries, and did whatever else she had to do between work and home that was better done without a toddler at her side.

Next job was at the local beauty shop. Every Saturday for two years she swept hair from the floor and laundered towels. The staff was so impressed by her work ethic that they gave her a small scholarship to help with her college tuition.

Then came pizza waitress during high school, which gave way to pharmacy clerk after she got her first car, then it was on to software sales while she worked her way through college.

Marriage and a baby followed, with jobs at various places one right after another, no letup, while still going to school, and making great grades. Because she had a vision.

And it has stood her in good stead. When layoffs happen, she just knuckles down and goes at it even harder, working 16-hour shifts and weekends, keeping her family fed, clothed, shod, and in church.

She embodies both the Saturday's child works hard for a living and the Sunday's child ideals of bonny, blythe, and fair.

I want to be like her when I grow up.