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Inheritance (essay) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maria Ceferatti
INHERITANCE
hen I look at my nineyear-old son, I see my husband’ s face. His square jaw, his chiseled cheekbones, his light brown hair, his delicate, perfectly proportioned nose. When my son turns to the side, however, I see myself. He has my ears. I have big ears. My father has big ears. Our ears don ’t stick out from the sides of our heads, they are not malformed, but they are big.
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I wonder if this physical trait is shared among us because we are all musicians: my father, a music teacher for 30 years, plays the saxophone, clarinet and flute; I teach the violin and piano; and my son has been dutifully taking piano lessons for four years now. It makes sense that for musicians, large ears would be an asset.
I think back to the first time I saw his oversized ears. Nine years ago I wasn ’t concerned about piano lessons, I was just praying he ’d survive. That’ s because he was born prematurely, weighing only one pound, three ounces. I was just over five months pregnant when I was put on strict bed rest at Lankenau Hospital because of pre-term labor. After three weeks, the contractions couldn ’t be stopped and my son came into the world sixteen weeks before he was due. I’d never seen a human being so small. It amazed me that his whole tiny body was already formed, from the wisps of hair on his head to his fragile little fingers and toes. Oh, and those precious ears.
Because he had arrived so early, my husband and I did not have a name ready for him. After four days the neonatologists were getting impatient. “We need a name for this baby, ” they told us. “The nurses can ’t keep calling him ‘Baby Boy Number Seven ’ when they talk to him through the incubator. ”
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My husband and I scrambled. I’d been reading the Bible for solace and comfort during my weeks on bed rest, so we consulted the greatest story ever told to come up with a name.
“What about ‘Simon ’?” my husband said, popping his head up from the Book
Fighting Seductive Addiction by Sean Martorana © 2011
