Hey -- Can I Borrow a Quarter?

I remember it like it was yesterday: Wifey awoke, in our classic 80s era Scandinavian bed (teak veneer over pressed board, with bizarre fasteners holding the thing together) and said, in her sweet Southern twang, "Sweetie -- ah think it may be time." OK, so the years soften details, and in fact she Brooklyn Jewish girl whined to me the same message. Time truly does make memories better... Anyway, I took her to South Miami Hospital, we met her docs Richard Strassborg, a laconic Wisconsin born and raised Jewish guy, and Debbie Kenward, a local Miami girl who went from Miami Dade to UF to a very succesful ob/gyn practice...and we waited. And waited and waited. It was a Sunday, and Dr. S and I watched the Jets beat the Fins, in one of those great Marino-O'Brien pass fests...And still we waited...through the West Coast game -- I think it was the San Diego Chargers... Finally, Wifey still wasn't "progressing," and the fetal monitor showed some distress, and I told the 2 docs words Wifey still remembers clearly: "We're not very anti-C section, you know." This is because I was already, as a young PI lawyer, all too familiar with the brain damaged outcomes of births that go on too long. And even then, peri partum, I was looking out for tiny D1's interests... And so there came the baby-ectomy, and D1 joined this great earthly party. It was early in the evening. And I fell in love, and am still in love. And it was a quarter century past, today. Last night, D2 and Wifey and I had dinner with Dr. Barry, before he and I decamped to a Bioethics class we're taking together. D1 now works at his hospital, as a clinical dietician. He told us he strolled into the cafeteria, and D1 was holding court at the end of a table -- a bunch of students hanging onto her every word -- she was a true professor. She was teaching about nutrition. How can this be -- this tiny Pipsqueak -- I saw her removed from Wifey just a few weeks ago, and she was a baby... So 25 years fly by -- like spending a quarter at the casino slot machine. And D1's quarter was one enormous winner.