April Fool

The phone rang about 4:00 that morning. I answered it, hoping it wasn’t bad news or that Charles would have to go out to deliver a calf or treat a horse with colic. We were planning to go to my home in north Georgia later that day. Surely nothing was going to stop us!

It wasn’t bad news at all. It was very good news! My brother Charlie drawled, “Suzanne had her baby.” “Well, is it a girl or a boy?” I asked, thrilled that my sister had finally had the baby. She’d been so big she could hardly sit down at the table. Charlie sounded half asleep as he answered. “It’s a girl.” “Well, what did they name her?” I was irked that Charlie was making me drag everything out of him.

“They named her Fairlight Suzanne.” I squealed with delight that Suzanne and Bill had named their baby for her mother and for one of our favorite characters in Catherine Marshall’s novel, Christy. “Oh, what a beautiful name,” I said. “How much does she weigh?” Charlie was slow to answer but finally said he thought the baby weighed about two and a half pounds.

I was alarmed then. Two and a half pounds? Suzanne had been so big. How could the baby be so little?

Then Charlie, sounding drowsy, said, “Yes, I think the baby weighs about two and a half pounds. She’s a fine baby, though. They’ve named her Rebecca Jesswyn.”

“Wait a minute! What? You said her name is Fairlight Suzanne.”

Charlie started laughing. “The first one is Fairlight Suzanne; the second one is Rebecca Jesswyn.”

I gasped in amazement. Twins? Wow! No wonder Suzanne was so big! “We’ll be up later today,” I told Charlie. “I can’t wait to see them. Twins! The first in all our big family.”

I was too excited to sleep any longer but I crawled back in bed to tell Charles the good news. Before I could even get started he began laughing. “You know your brother Charlie and you know what day this is–April Fool!”

This was before cell phones so I couldn’t call as we traveled up the road. All the way to Clarkesville I jabbered with our two children about the twin cousins they would see soon. “Or maybe no baby yet,” Charles kept throwing into our conversations.

I guess you could call it an April Fool’s joke turned upside down. Because Suzanne indeed did have tiny identical twin girls. Everyone except Suzanne herself was astounded that there were two babies, even the doctor. He had assured Suzanne over and over that there was only one heartbeat. She argued with him that she felt more than one set of legs kicking her and that she was positive there were two heads. She says the doctor just shook his head. She began to wonder if she was having a deformed baby until just before midnight on March 31 when the doctor in amazement delivered a second little girl.

Fairlight and Rebecca have been a huge blessing to their immediate family, their parents and an older and younger brother, as well as to our big extended family. Our children loved having a baby each to hold when we visited. Over the years the girls enjoyed teasing their aunts and uncles by switching names and playing each other’s identity. Now both have families and are imaginative and enthusiastic teachers. At one time they taught in the same high school and found it handy every now and then to switch classes, confusing their students.

As you might imagine, this is my favorite April Fool story, the one that really is true. Wonderful things do happen! On March 31 “our” twins turned 47. Happy Birthday, Fairlight and Rebecca!