Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Johnny Bob

My little brother, Kristopher, is currently serving in the Army's 82nd Airborne Infantry Unit and has been sent to Haiti. He left about 4 days after the initial earthquake and has been there ever since. We don't know when he'll get to come home, but it's looking like it's going to be a long deployment. When he left it was quite a surprise, just a text message in the middle of the night letting me know he was heading to Haiti and that he loved us. By the time I got it, his phone was going straight to voicemail. After the next earthquake in Haiti, we worried since we had no contact. A couple of days later he was able to text my dad from an unknown phone, but we knew he was safe. About a week ago he started texting me from his phone. In texting with him, after asking all the basic stuff, I asked what he was doing and if he felt like he was helping people. His response was "nothing" and "no". My heart hurt for him knowing he was there and felt like he wasn't making a difference. Yesterday, that all changed.

I texted to see how he was and if things were getting better. He told me they were and then he texts me, "I delivered a baby today." I was totally dumbfounded. "Seriously?" is all I could write back! He was completely serious. My brother, a guy who jumps out of planes for a living, delivered a baby in Haiti. I guess he's had some medical training in preparation for his time spent in Afghanistan, but definitely not in delivering a baby! The next natural question was, "Did they name it after you?" and he said "No, but I got to pick the name." He named him Johnny Bob. Johnny Bob? Why in the world would he pick a name like Johnny Bob? Apparently all the kids running around were asking him his name yesterday, so in fun, he told them it was Johnny Bob. When he was asked to name the baby, the first thing that came to his mind was... Johnny Bob!

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