“I still believe in love and there must be a God above because he brought me you.” Lyrics from the song “Meant to Be” by Mary Fahl (2013)
March 21, 1991, The Day Our Son Was Born
It was a really beautiful and sunny first day of spring in 1991 as temps reached north of 50 degrees in the afternoon. Mom was relaxing at home on her spring break anticipating a scheduled cesarean section for March 25th. I was working at Kidder Peabody, one of the more prominent Wall Street firms back then and had stopped the heavy traveling that normally occurred for me during this time of the year as the senior auto analyst at the firm. I had front loaded as much of the heavy travel as I could in January and February and was busy updating my financial models of all the auto and parts companies, writing my usual investment reports and recommendations and doing heavy phone work calling on our key institutional investors.
At about 3pm, my secretary Joanne Lennon — who had worked with me for years and would follow me later on to Salomon Brothers and then First Boston — came barging through my door and said “Jack, Jean just called and said you must go to the hospital right away”. Jean had started spotting blood and Dr. Hofman told her they would have to proceed ahead with an emergency cesarean birth. Joanne was such a great partner of mine over the years as she had already arranged a limousine to take me from my office in lower Manhattan to Princeton Medical Center, a trip that at that time of the day should take about 90 minutes. So I grabbed my coat and briefcase, hopped on the elevator and jumped into the limo. I remember how nervous I was because back then we didn’t have mobile phones so I could not call either Jean or the hospital and the route required us to travel along Route 1 for a good portion of the ride and that road was always busy with heavy traffic, irrespective of the time of the day. So I prayed real hard on the ride, hoping that I could still get there in time for the birth of our son.
Mom was in constant touch with Dr. Hofman who was already at the hospital waiting to perform the C-section. As the clock ticked closer and closer to 5pm, he informed Mom that he wasn’t going to be able to wait much longer. Fortunately, my driver got me to the hospital at around 4:45pm and I can still visualize the relief on Mom’s face when she saw me come into the room. Shortly thereafter, Mom gave birth to our son Patrick John, named after my Mom’s father Patrick Flaherty whom my brothers and I revered and who had the most beautiful set of blue eyes I ever saw other than Mom’s. One of my great memories is being able to hold each of my children immediately after their birth — it’s something you never, ever forget.
Mom would have to stay in the hospital for a couple of nights but fortunately our neighbor Mrs. Werger was able to pick up Tarah and Katie at Camelot School until Grandma Re arrived to help us out the following day. One of my fondest memories was several days later when I drove over to the hospital to bring Mom and Pat back to the house in East Windsor. As we settled Mom and baby Patrick into our Volvo wagon, we decided to make a pitstop at PJ’s Pancake House in Princeton and devoured some of those great pancakes. We sat in that first table that looks out at Nassau Street. Mom and I kept looking at each other and at Patrick and couldn’t believe how grateful we were to have the son we always wanted and to think that only 6 years earlier we weren’t sure if we would ever be able to have a family. But then the Lord answered our prayers and He has been a constant presence in our lives ever since.
Listening to the great Mary Fahl song called “Meant to Be” touches me in so many ways when I think of that moment of Pat’s birth into our lives and especially the last line of the song “I still believe in love and there must be a God above because he brought me you.”
So grateful Pat that God brought you into our lives each and every day since that beautiful afternoon in Princeton in 1991 and hope you know how much your family loves you.
