Meg Dowell Writes

They named me Megan Elizabeth. The middle name came from my grandmother; the first name came from Margaret, which means “pearl.” I was a gem, a treasure discovered with love and purpose, despite my early arrival. No one got the dates wrong; time never slipped away. If they ever figured out why, I was never let in on the secret, nor do I want to be.

There has never been a time since I took my first real breath that I haven’t believed in miracles, God, and love. It was God’s love that provided the miracle. It was my parents’ love, both of me and each other, that helped me grow. I’m five feet three inches, one-hundred-fifteen pounds, because of love, God, and miracles.

And time.

It took almost eighteen years to sprout from the hope that was two pounds, ten ounces, on the twenty-first of July in the second year of the last decade of the twentieth century on record. It took all that time even for me to begin to figure out who I am. There are plenty of reasons why I’m not finished deciding; plenty more why I should be.

They could have named me Hope, or Grace. They could have named me Miracle if they wanted, or the German word for it. But they didn’t want me to have to tell my entire story when someone asked me my name. Because, like it or not, that’s how some people make small talk in this sad excuse for a country, one nation, under God.

“Your parents named you Barney? Why?”

“Your name is Princess? Why?”

“Why did they name you Megan?”

Because they realized that removing the middle letter would describe my alter-ego, whom shall not be mentioned now, and that this oxymoron would follow me for the rest of my life, completely unnoticed until I learned how to read and write and spell, and learned to play with blocks with A through Z painted on all twenty-six separately, all six sides.

A parent has so many dreams for their child. They hope to pass on their good alleles, not the bad ones, and that they’ll be valedictorian seventeen years later, and president of all the clubs, and passionate about what they love the most. For all the worry and anxiety that ruptured through the veins of my entire extended family the day I was born, I can honestly say I don’t doubt that I have succeeded in pleasing them, one way or another. And if I could have known what I was doing, and waited just a few more months, I would have.

But then there would be nothing to write about. Less to be thankful for. No mystery as to why I’m still here; what I’m meant to change in this crippled world most of us call our home. We’re all meant for something. If I’ve made it through eighteen years of working three times as hard as everyone else, then perhaps I’m meant for something great.

It’s true when they say you have to work hard to be lazy (or to be “ambitiously lazy,” as my high school choir director called it). If you don’t do your homework, guilt nips at your heels, and your throat tightens up. If you don’t study, your heart pounds, your palms sweat, and you spend more time worrying than would have been required to look over your notes and ace the test. I know because I was lazy once. But not because I didn’t have a choice in the matter, which I’m sure plenty of bystanders have thought over the years.

Life for me didn’t begin in that hospital. My life, for three months or so after that fateful day, was incubators and tubes and horrors I thankfully can’t remember. Life was the NICU, people I didn’t recognize, and day after day in the hospital. I still hate hospitals. I hate going to the doctor. I hate being sick.

No. Life began the moment they let me go. No longer was I labeled a preemie. No longer was I one of a few, or one of many. I was the single living, breathing (with assistance) daughter of two thankful parents. No; I wasn’t “normal.” But really, when you take the time to think about it, who is? What does it mean to be “normal”?

I wouldn’t know. Go ask a normal person.