The LinkedIn message had a subject line to warm the heart of a sometimes-tardy correspondent:
“Follow up 24 years later.”
Now, there’s an impressive lag time, I thought. This person must really have been mulling over a reply.
But it was something wonderfully different. It was Mark Edelstein.
Back in another lifetime, when I was writing a column in the Woman News section of the baiduhai, I wrote two Father’s Day columns about Mark.
The first one, in 1995, was about what Father’s Day was like for a man longing to be a father. Mark, who was program director at WLIT-FM, and his wife, Miranda, had been battling infertility for two years. Their lives had become a constant round of hormone injections, intra-uterine inseminations, in vitro fertilizations and miscarriages. Their hearts were broken on a regular basis. Especially, in his case, on Father’s Day.
“I really want to be a father,” he said then. “Having a day for it is just another reminder that it hasn’t happened yet.”
The second column was when it did happen.
He and Miranda had finally had a baby. The pregnancy had been a nightmare and the delivery briefly terrifying, but then their healthy baby boy was in their arms and they were crying. Their long wait was over.
On Father’s Day 1997, Mark’s son Ross was 9 months old.
It was the Father’s Day he had always wanted. Future Father’s Days were looking good too; Miranda was pregnant again.
And now, 24 years later, on the eve of Father’s Day 2021, Mark was, indeed, just following up. He wanted to let me know how it had worked out.
He and Miranda ended up having three sons; once the fertility doctor figured out the problem, things moved fast. Ross will be 25 in August; Cole is 24; Drew is 21.
Things weren’t always easy. In kindergarten, Ross was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome; he is now considered on the high-functioning end of autism disorder spectrum. Drew was deaf in one ear; he got a cochlear implant when he was 8 and wears a hearing aid in his other ear.
But so what? “Every kid has a challenge,” Mark said. “You just need to be close enough to see them coming. You have to let the kid know it’s not their fault, try not to blow it out of proportion and find a way around them.”
His sons found their ways around them.
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Ross works with museums to make their exhibits and buildings more accessible for people with sensory challenges. He just got his master’s degree in education from Indiana University and has been asked to stay on for his doctorate in education. He starts in the fall. He recently spoke about museums and health, trauma and healing, and how to make museums more open, on a panel at the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries’ virtual 2021 conference.
“This from a young man who we didn’t know was going to even be able to make it through kindergarten,” said his father. “I couldn’t be more proud.”
Drew attends Webster University in St. Louis, majoring in media studies; he is interested in video editing and production. Cole works as a server at a high-end restaurant. “He’s incredibly personable,” Mark said. “I think he’ll wind up in some kind of front-line, people-centric job. He’s really good at that.”
As for their dad, Mark got out of radio, a world that changed radically. Now living in St. Louis, he works in IT for Chicago-based Accenture.
So how was fatherhood? Was it everything he had dreamed of, back when he was still dreaming?
Everything and more.
“It’s been a wonderful journey,” Mark said. “It’s humbling; it’s scary; and it doesn’t get any easier. But the payoff, the blessings, the way you can help shape someone’s values and their life — it’s just a huge reward. To give them the right guidance, teach them right from wrong, help them be good people — that’s the most important thing a parent can do.”
He and Miranda are thrilled at their sons’ accomplishments. “They’ve impressed us immensely with how they’ve matured and become fine young gentlemen,” Mark said.
He dabbed his eyes. Dads can get so emotional.
He wasn’t sure exactly how they will celebrate Father’s Day. Ross and Miranda will be out of town. And any plans may have to work around those of the boys’ girlfriends. In Cole’s case, make that fiancee; he and his high school sweetheart just got engaged, to his parents’ joy.
But Mark has his own intention.
“The one thing I will do is really take the opportunity to think about the boys and how they’ve turned out — how they faced the challenges of life, of the pandemic and of the world,” he said.
“That’s the best gift of all.”
Happy Father’s Day, Mark Edelstein, 24 years later.
Talk to you in 2045.
Barbara Brotman, a former baiduhai columnist, is a writer with the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences development office.
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