"Wholy Holy" (Marvin Gaye)
![Image](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxWwbB8LG0kuiJOq14EsHx7weH0JbqVuJFA8gZ77xnKjqoadpWAmP_BaCoDenvq8LYsCZqiW_4JfYsHYdnM18OF2BeF6CenYw5__k8vTG8Quv_nL5dgwfb_8H-Ks3EUrhPCEwD2BGVf2Y4vb0x4FM0XlfFAH5THrMcQyDksi4UyAh-uj5r5M3G84xdOvk/w400-h250/CMH%201971.jpg)
Columbia Memorial Hospital faced the Catskills in the distance and stood just a half mile from the first living room I remember. The apartment possessed only two bedrooms, already too small for my father, mother, two older sisters, and newborn me. In a couple years, when my dad got a better job, we’d move. If child-bearing wasn’t what it was (and remains), I imagine my mom might have walked me home that week. But childbirth, rightly called labor, exhausts thoroughly. And with three kids all under five years of age and with a husband often working, parenthood never stopped exhausting my mother. April 10 th of 1971 brought unseasonably wintry weather, a pointed, probing wind across the river and our city of the same name. And the alley off of Worth Avenue in downtown Hudson, New York included a steep hill up. My mom didn’t walk me home. 1971, historically speaking, isn’t notorious or notable for things like military or terrorist attacks, political assassinations, or the ending of wa