Nurse ‘goes full circle’ with prem father, son
MERYL KORNFIELD
THE first few days of a premature baby’s life can be especially hellish for a new mother.
But Renata Freydin is resting easier knowing one nurse at a neonatal intensive care unit is there to watch over her new son, Zayne Caldwell, who was born 10 weeks early in January.
That’s because the nurse,
Lissa Mcgowan, has a connection to the family. She was there at the Children’s Hospital at Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, 33 years ago when Zayne’s father and Freydin’s fiancé, David Caldwell, was born – early just like his son, the Courier News first reported.
“The past two weeks have been filled with worries and uncertainty, but we can breathe easy knowing my son’s nurse is the same one that helped the man I love when he was in the same situation,” Freydin posted on Facebook.
Freydin isn’t the first mother to be comforted by Mcgowan’s presence in the intensive care unit.
Three decades ago, Caldwell’s late mother Ida Bell, who called Mcgowan “Nurse Lissa”, became so attached to her son’s caretaker that she included a picture of the smiling nurse and bundled baby in a photo album, Freydin said. Three decades later, the parents spotted the snapshot.
Caldwell pulled his old photo album out of storage after his son was born to see whether they looked similar. But it was Freydin who spotted the other likeness – the nurse.
“I saw a picture of her and instantly knew it was her, but he didn’t believe me,” she said.
To erase Caldwell’s doubts, the couple brought the picture to the hospital, where three other nurses confirmed it was Mcgowan.
Another photo was taken in the intensive care unit: this time, it was of the nurse and Zayne. They replicated the same pose as in Caldwell’s original picture.
And just like Caldwell did, Zayne is quickly growing. While he was born at1.6kg, Freydin said, “he’s getting bigger day by day”. He now weighs close to2.26kg.
The couple visit him in the unit every day. They’re hoping he can come home by next month.
“I can’t go a day without seeing him,” Freydin said. “Even when I see him, it’s not enough.”
But when Freydin isn’t there and Mcgowan is, the new mother said, it felt like her fiancé’s mother was watching over her son.
Mcgowan, who didn’t recognise Caldwell at first, was surprised to learn of the connection from the couple. The nurse estimated she’d cared for thousands of babies during her 38 years at that hospital.
“The fact they were both born in this hospital, in this neonatal intensive care unit, with me as their nurse, that in itself just beats the odds,” Mcgowan said. “The picture just made it full circle.” | The Washington Post
BEFORE Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, there was the postcard.
The younger among us may never have sent one to anyone. Communication today is mostly instant and mail is derogatorily called “snail mail”.
But there’s a global revival of post, and the rainbow nation ranks at number 44 out of 248 countries and territories.
Since the world’s first picture postcard was sent to London-based writer Theodore Hook in 1840, the postcard has enjoyed much popularity as a means to share images and thoughts across regions and cultures.
That popularity has declined, mostly because of the rise of mobilephones and social media. Sending a postcard takes more time and effort than sending an email, or a message on social media, which makes postcards even more meaningful than they were when there was no instant alternative.
Writing a postcard requires you to slow down and give the message your full attention and receiving one feels far more personal than receiving a message on an electronic device.
A postcard is a tangible token of acknowledgement and there is something magical about knowing that the piece of paper you hold in your hands has travelled a long distance and passed through the hands of many people to deliver to you the thoughts of another person.
While “likes” are often given without much thought and hardly rise to the level of meaningful engagement, writing a postcard is an exercise in patience and mindfulness and it shows that you really care – enough to buy a postcard, write on it, and go to the post office to buy stamps and send it.
In 2005, the love for postcards of then-university student Paulo Magalhães from Portugal led him to create the Postcrossing project, an online platform that transcends geographic and political boundaries and connects people from across the globe.
The idea is simple: for each postcard you send, you will receive a postcard.
The Postcrossing community consists of close to 800 000 mail enthusiasts. They have to date exchanged more than 55 million postcards, which have travelled a combined 282 450 922 702km.
As the website notes, that is “7 048 057 laps around the Earth or 367 389 return trips to the moon or 944 return trips to the sun!”
At any given moment, hundreds of thousands of postcards are travelling. So far, most postcards have been sent from Germany, more than eight million, followed by Russia and the US.
If Africa was a country, it would rank between New Zealand and Slovakia. Close to 200 000 postcards have been sent from there, by about 3 000 Postcrossers. The majority of them, nearly 1 900, live in South Africa and account for 134 722 postcards.
Three of South Africa’s most active Postcrossers are Cecile Schlebusch from George, Jayne Batzofin from Cape Town, and Charmaine Marnewick from Pretoria.
Cecile wrote her first letter when she was 6 years old and in hospital. It was addressed to her grandfather. Ever since, she has been fond of writing, be it letters or postcards, which is why she signed up for Postcrossing.
“I have always wanted to communicate with people who lived in faraway places. Postcrossing offered a once-off communication with somebody unknown; yet the possibility to become pen pals later on, if so desired, was there.”
To date, Cecile has sent 1 660 postcards, more than any other Postcrosser in South Africa. She has received postcards from as far away as Macao, Estonia, Uzbekistan, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and South Korea, and quite a few crossings have developed into friendships.
Cecile personalises the postcards she sends, writing only after carefully studying the recipient’s profile, and leaving “a very small, funny line drawing of a cat, mouse, or something else”.
She is always on the lookout for interesting new postcards. To her, “the whole process of sending a card is magical, as you will be making indirect contact with somebody who does not know you or even realise that there is a card on its way from the southern tip of Africa”.
One of Jayne’s fondest childhood memories is of receiving postcards from her father whenever he was travelling abroad for work. There was no internet, so it “was a rare moment to connect with him and hear how he was doing”.
Jayne developed a liking for sending postcards and joined Postcrossing after hearing about it from a friend who was already a member.
“I loved receiving interesting postcards from my friends who travelled abroad and I loved the idea of making these micro-moment connections with strangers from all over the globe.”
When people hear about her hobby, they are intrigued and ask many questions. “It is always an amazing conversation starter.”
One of the postcards Jayne treasures the most is one she received when living abroad.
“I was undergoing a very traumatic time in my life, and this Postcrosser put immense care and thought into a postcard for a seeming stranger. They drew the most exquisite doodles all over the back that made the back its own artwork. When I received it, the care put into it provided me with a moment of joy. In fact, that whole period I lived abroad was transformed by the amount of postcards I received. I covered my walls in them, and it made the time there feel as homely as possible.”
Even though it has been more than six years since Jayne joined Postcrossing, she said opening her mailbox and finding postcards still filled her with sheer delight.
Charmaine learned about Postcrossing in a magazine.
“The idea of receiving mail from all over the world, getting to know more about other countries, especially people, was an exciting thought. As I am passionate about South Africa, I could not wait to tell the world about our beautiful, unique Mzansi and all its interesting people and different cultures.”
Sending postcards evokes feelings of nostalgia in Charmaine.
“Birthday cards from family members with some money in it used to be the order of the day, so waiting for the postman to spot your name on an envelope kept children everywhere excited. We were taught to write and address letters in school, never realising that the art of letter writing would soon be a thing of the past.
“The anticipation of where your next postcard will be going keeps me buzzing. More than this, I enjoy browsing through the person’s profile and selecting a card they would like.”
Last year, she helped establish a South African Postcrossing group on Facebook, and plans to arrange a meetup some time this year. Postcrossing, she said, had taught her that