Sounds of Hope

 May Days It was a beautiful spring day.   It was already warm as spring comes early in Central Missouri.   It was graduation day at the University of Missouri.   I stood at the hospital window and watched the proud graduates stream out of the Hearnes Center.   A happy future awaited them.   I went to high school with some of them.   I was too far away and there were too many to look at faces. It was 1975.   The hippies were finding Jesus.   The war was winding down and would end.   Patty Hearst was in the news.   And I had just given birth to my third child.   She was in trouble.   I had seen her rushed from delivery by forceps to the pediatricians.   I asked, what did I have?   The doctor in his haste had failed to look to see her gender.   He went and looked and announced it was a girl.   He looked at me and said Joyce, don’t get too excited, I don’t know if she’ll make it. As I stood at that window watching the happy students and their families, I cried.   I cried for my da