1983 - Spacing Out at The Cape; Birth of Their Quiet Sage; High Strung Fretting
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They delivered him at home, a relatively easy labor (compared to Noah’s), mostly Paul’s hands welcoming him in, but Lynn (a long-time friend of Linda’s and a fellow lay midwife and nurse) attended and helped.
I remember my second son sliding into my hands, looking into Linda’s eyes, our hearts filled with joy. Noah, there for part of the process, self-selected not to stay for the whole thing and fell asleep in the next room. Jared gazed up to us with deep sweet soulful eyes, happy and content. Even at birth, and thereafter, he barely ever cried. I remarked to Linda that he either was a spiritually realized soul and the calmest baby I’d ever seen, or there was something wrong with him. That was a joke.
It turned out it wasn’t a joke. It was a process that took decades, but Linda eventually pushed and persevered for a diagnosis – Jared had Angelman Syndrome and was our “Angel Man”.
Linda and her dedication to Jared, her battles for him, merit their own account. Read more specifically about Linda and Jared.
Always with a deep resonance for music, Linda preferred rock and roll in her early life. But after they started square dancing weekly at a local church, bluegrass became another genre that brought her delight. She picked up and became quite good with a Dulcimer. She did not join a group or perform for the public, although she did play on Sunday neighborhood get-togethers and potlucks. Mostly she played to sooth Jared, his sweet smile and laugh her reward, the most appreciative audience she could desire.
Read more about Linda’s love of music and the central role it played in her life.
Paul always wanted to be an astronaut, but didn’t have the eyes for it, and maybe not the brains either. But he took every opportunity to finagle ways to get as close and into it as possible. Cape Kennedy became his “plum rotation” and one way to exorcise his fantasy.
They booked a small one double-bed room at the Scottish Inn off I-95 near Titusville so Paul could drive through the side security gate. Nature-girl roots notwithstanding, Linda totally grooved on it; the Cape, the launches, the whole audacious endeavor. Paul worked primarily with exercise physiologists, but also helped accomplish the pre-flight and post-flight physicals on astronauts (two of whom subsequently and tragically perished in the Challenger disaster). But it got him into the Vehicle Assembly Building, walking the gantry gangway to the Shuttle on Launch Complex-36 (the launch pad). Best of all emotionally, he got access to have his family closer than the President to watch a launch.
That did it. Hopelessly captivated, Linda became a space buff with more enthusiasm than Paul for all things astronomy and space, something that grew in her the rest of her life.
Among the many wonders for Noah was watching the first showings of some new movie channel called “HBO,” and going to Disney World (Yes, he said it, “It’s like a dream come true”).
CAUTIONARY ADVISEMENT: This website intends to celebrate Linda’s life, to memorialize her accomplishments and her most elevated self. The Eulogy, the Timeline, and the Themes pages attempt to do that in the best way possible. Additional detail and personal reflections can enrich appreciation of what Linda accomplished yet may feel irrelevant or even controversial to others. To keep the primary focus on what matters most, additional detail is reserved for these Read More pages linked from the Timeline.
Please respect these additional subjective and in-depth accounts as intended to illustrate deeper and perhaps the most admirable aspects of Linda’s humanity, and as part of her partner’s bereavement and healing process. Sections with especially subjective first-person and personal recollections are identified with a note saying: Her Partner’s Personal Perspectives.