Last Wednesday, I asked my Mom to put a shake into my Henry Ford cooler bag and to take a picture of it. Now let me ‘splain ya:
This is the cooler bag I was speaking of that is 23 years old and in November, it will be 24. That’s fact is. crazy to me!!!
You see, the reason I have this cooler bag is because Sean was in NICU for 31 days and I was breast-feeding or at least attempting to. Because Sean was a breast-feeding baby, they sent me home with these cute little bottles that had caps that I could easily hook up to my breast pump machine and they would administer that to him in his feeding tube in his nose when it was time for him to eat.
The reason that my Mom and I laugh about this bag is because I told her the story of when I was getting into a crowded elevator, bringing Sean milk.
I think first that I need to explain that the hallway that was being tiled NEVER got finished the entire 31 days that Sean was in the hospital. It’s finished lnow that it is 23 years later, but…
I think there may have been some kind of contract dispute or something story just kind of adds to that assumption:
it is November 2001 and we were still crowding into elevators like it was safe. I was just coming in to see Sean so it was early in the morning and the elevator was filling up. As is the habit of getting into an elevator and then to turn around to press the button. So, I did that. I had this little cooler in my hand. I think they were about six little bottles of milk for Sean.
so, I get into the elevator and turn around, and this other people were getting into the elevator at the same time and a man who was dressed like hewas a trade worker, possibly working on the floor.
He said something like, “Oh look, they gave you a nice little lunch bag!” Kind of sarcastic and before he could turn around and the elevator doors would close, I just said in a monotone voice because I was tired and my son was in the hospital, “It’s actually for my breastmilk because my son is in NICU.”
My Mom and I laugh because I can still see that guy with his embarrassed look on his face before he turned around just as the doors were closing. I go to that hospital all the time now and we were just there and the floor is totally tiled now. The elevator that we were using is no longer in service and this fact feels strange for me because I used thatelevator every day to see Sean for 31 days!