Author: Joe_Davis

It took me longer than it should have to realize I am not in charge of the universe. I used to think that if I worked hard enough and thought my way through every variable, the world would play along. Control was my comfort zone. And I had plenty of chances to learn better, but I ignored most of them.

Let me tell you about the day Alden was born.

Jill’s due date was July 15, 1996. By July 19, she was done. Oklahoma summers are brutal even when you are not pregnant, and she was, deeply. She tried everything to jumpstart labor—walking stairs at work, drinking weird juices our family swore by, watching horror movies, blaring Beethoven. Nothing worked. We waited.

The weekend before the induction was pure misery. Jill was miserable. I was miserable. I hated that there was nothing I could do. I could not fix it. I could not will it into happening. We had an induction set for Monday, July 22. All we could do was hold on until then. Jill’s parents came up on Sunday to stay with us. Still, we waited.

Monday morning, we got up early and drove to Norman Regional Hospital. Jill and I were in our convertible. Her parents followed behind in their RV. It must have looked like a very slow, very tired parade. We checked in. Jill was quickly in a hospital bed, wired up to machines. Everything that could be done had been done. And so, again, we waited.

Jill had told her OB, Dr. Parker, that she did not want an epidural. Minimal drugs. That lasted until about 10 a.m., when the pain arrived in full. She changed her mind fast. The nurse called for the anesthesiologist, who was not scheduled and would need an hour or so to get there. My wife was in pain and I could do nothing but sit next to her and wait.

The epidural finally came. I did not enjoy watching it. Jill did not enjoy receiving it. She cursed that poor anesthesiologist with combinations of words that still make me proud and slightly afraid. Afterward, the nurse let us know the epidural might slow labor down. Jill calmed. She even started to drift off a little. And we waited.

About thirty minutes later, Jill asked me to go update her family. She was feeling better and wanted them to get something to eat. I went to the waiting room and passed the message along. Some left. Others stayed. Either way, they waited.

I walked back to the labor room, hoping Jill was resting. As I rounded the corner, I saw nurses throwing chairs out of the room. My stomach dropped. I must have looked like I was about to pass out, because one nurse glanced at me and said, “Your wife is having a baby.”

It did not register.

She followed up with, “Now.”

Dr. Parker was in the next room delivering another baby. Jill’s room was being prepped in a hurry. Her mom was brought in. Everything was ready. Except the doctor. So, one last time, we waited.

Twenty minutes later, Alden Lee Davis came into the world. Healthy. Beautiful. Jill was okay. I was… beyond okay. I felt like I had lifted something too heavy and somehow managed not to drop it.

But here is the truth I missed in that moment: I never had control to begin with. Not over time. Not over pain. Not over life arriving in its own damn time. I had missed the lesson in all the waiting.

We waited. And that was the whole lesson.

Some memories come with a handle.

They are not the ones stacked neatly on the top shelf. They are the ones you can grab when everything else feels slippery and far away.

It took me a while to realize it. Some memories just hang on harder. They have weight to them. Texture. A pulse you can still feel if you reach for it.

I think it is because of the emotions tied to them. A deep laugh. A real heartbreak. A fear so strong it rattled my teeth. A joy so big it left me stunned.

Those feelings build a kind of anchor. They sink the memory deeper into me, make it easier to find even when the rest of the world starts to go fuzzy.

Other memories, the ones without a handle, slip away too easily. I reach for them and come back with nothing but air. A face half-remembered. A conversation that dissolves before I can catch it. They are still out there somewhere, but they are harder to grasp now.

But the ones with a handle, those I can still pull close.

I can still feel my daughter’s tiny hand squeezing mine the first day she ever went to school. I can still hear the way my mom’s voice would lift when she said my name after a long time apart.

I can still feel the rain pounding down the day our daughter was born. I remember standing in the hospital parking lot, soaked through, laughing and crying all at once, feeling the weight of a new life beginning.

And I can still see the way the sun poured over the Grand Canyon when I stood there with my wife and daughter. I can feel the cool wind on my face, hear the sound of their laughter bouncing off the canyon walls. That day is carved deep into me. Solid. Bright. Real.

The memory itself might be faded, like an old photograph left in the sun too long. But the feeling, the feeling is sharp. Solid. It gives me something to hold onto.

Maybe that is part of the work now. Finding the handles. Wrapping both hands around them and holding tight.

Because not everything will stay. But some things will. The things with a handle.

And while I still have the handles, I want to share those stories. Before they slip away.

You know that dazed feeling you sometimes get right after you wake up — that split second of “Where am I? What is going on?”

That has become an ever-increasing part of my waking life. It did not crash in all at once. It seeped in slow, almost polite, and now it touches everything.

I have always been proud of my memory. It was never just a skill, it was part of who I was.

Now I find myself losing the easy things. Names of old friends I have known for years. Stories my daughter shared with me, even the ones that made me laugh just the day before. Movies I have watched more times than I can count l, now blurry, like bad reception on a TV screen.

Sometimes it is worse than forgetting facts. Sometimes I lose the thread of conversations while I am still standing in them. Sometimes a song will play, and I will feel the emotion stir, but the reason behind it, the memory, stays just out of reach.

My mom died back in August.

I forget sometimes. I will be sitting there thinking about her, feeling like I should call her, hearing her voice so clear in my mind, and then I will check my notes, and remember she is gone.

And just like that, the grief comes rushing back, as sharp and raw as the day I lost her.

It is not just details slipping away. It is pieces of my life, pieces of myself, going quiet.

I have decided to start documenting this part of my life. To give some understanding to the people around me. And maybe, to offer a hand to anyone else who is struggling with the same lonely, invisible battle.

You are not alone. Neither am I.