THE DAY HELEN WAS BORN

He woke up splendid but then the air returned to haze. Westow Croft Maternity in North Yorkshire was an old mansion that had served as a blood hospital during the war. Few know of the fortitude and sufferings of the English people during that fight when the Germans bombed the entire county. It was a Victorian building surrounded by pine trees behind a cemetery. I went in the early hours of the morning, they did not let me pass: —Your wife is in labor My wife had been transferred in an ambulance at dawn and I hitchhiked to York and from there I moved to the town in a wasteland called "moors" where the wind is blowing hard. I was very nervous and I amused myself taking walks around the place, there was not a soul, I entered the cemetery. I remember well there was a recent grave of a twenty-year-old girl. The flowers and the death wreath were fresh and the disturbed earth was piled up in a burial mound. I took out the rosary that I always carry with me and prayed the five mysteries for that unknown young woman who had just been buried precisely when my daughter was about to be born. It was a slow and difficult delivery. Suzanne was given chloroform and no epidural. In the 1970s English gynecology was still in the dark and seemed very primitive to me. All day I entertained myself lost in my thoughts. Finally, at half past nine at night, precisely at that time, I had come into the world twenty-six years ago, my first daughter came into the world. I still can't get rid of that impression. Suzanne was tired but she gave me a smile with her green eyes and she was a most beautiful woman the most beautiful in England and she squeezed my hand. And I said, "Well done Zanny you are a heroine." In a little while Dr. Isherwood, brother of the famous English poet of the 1930s, approached me and shook my hand: —Mister Parra you have a beautiful daughter. —Thank you Sir, She is going to be beautiful, Her name us Helen the shining one. Isherwood was the doctor from Pocklington, he always carried a leather briefcase in his hand and a smile on his lips. He was the classic English doctor with good bed side manners. Suzanne's mother and I took a taxi and returned to Wilberfoss. My poor mother-in-law from whom my wife had inherited her beauty was a nervous wreck. I think we celebrated my firstborn's arrival in the world with half a pint of ale myself and a babysham or mother-in-law, it was midnight when we entered our house in Wilberfoss. Still light in the sky. The limelight the entrelubricán of the northern hemisphere. Waiting for the midnight sun. The nerves, the love and the longing for that day have not passed me yet. It took me a while to sleep and wrote this poem WESTOWCROFT CEMETERY Some come and others go that is how it is Life rolls that does not stop Nobody remembers you who died buried here but I murmur a prayer for your soul when my daughter is going to be born You sleep there in the churchyard behind the Norman church tower Rest because you are promises under the grass Of a new life that begins I can comfort you by saying that there is no death Vita mutatur non tollitur Life changes not snatched The resurrection will come Sleep and rest Waiting for your arrival Christ will come The wells of dawn will frolic in the inlet You will hear the cricket sing In the interregnums They are secret documents that my Faith has revealed to me You are dead in hope HELEN OLIVIA ISABEL JOANA Go with such names to life Daughter of my entrails To the joy of living of suffering and suffering Elena the resplendent Olivia olive branch What peace you brought us Fruit of our love and our blood You were given to us by God Meat of my meat Cry of my cry Life of my life That you made more beautiful