Chapter 10 
Chapter 10 “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
—2 CORINTHIANS 12:9
AL AND LISA: The first several months of our marriage were some of the best days of our lives. Sure, we dealt with the same obstacles that many newlywed couples do, and we did not do everything right, but we were still blissfully happy. We did not have much money, so we learned how to live on love. We thoroughly enjoyed living with Granny and Pa, even though the four of us were in close quarters. We often fell asleep at night to the music of Pa’s deep bass snore and Granny’s light, almost whispering snore. We had the blessing of Robertsons all around us, literally, and when we needed an occasional evening alone, Lisa often fried potatoes for us or made Hamburger Helper or pimiento cheese, and we ate dinner in the little house while the rest of the family ate at Phil and Miss Kay’s. Even with our occasional newlywed challenges, the first year of our marriage was a joyful one.
AL: As much as Lisa and I liked being with Granny and Pa and having all of our family nearby, almost underfoot, we knew we needed our own space. The problem was, we could not afford much. My dad had been trying to buy some property next to his land on the river for years, but the owner, who used it as a fishing camp, would not sell. The property included a little shack, just a combination kitchen and living room and a bedroom—about five or six hundred square feet of living space, plus a front porch and an outhouse.
The people who owned the property visited and stayed in the shack occasionally during the six months Lisa and I lived with Granny and Pa. One weekend, they came to do some fishing and had an unusual experience. The wife was terrified of snakes. When she sat down on a chair and felt something moving under the cushion, she jumped up and ran screaming out of the house. It’s a wonder she did not hurt herself. Yes, there was a snake under the seat cushion, and right then and there, the woman announced to her husband that she would never set foot in that fishing camp again. Apparently, he knew she was serious, because he soon called my dad to ask if he was still interested in buying the place.
When Lisa and I heard about the situation, we immediately started trying to figure out how we could buy the property and the little shack. By that time, our relationship with Lisa’s parents had improved, and they graciously helped us get the place by cosigning for the loan. Granny and Pa chipped in too, even though I am sure that was a sacrifice for them.
We may have been living in a shack, but we thought we were sleeping like royalty.
This was the mid-1980s, and Lisa and I did not want to live with an outhouse. Lisa’s dad enclosed the front porch, and using money Granny and Pa gave us for materials for a bathroom and septic system, Lisa’s dad and I put in a small bathroom. We also added a living area. In addition, Lisa’s dad built us a kitchen table, and we did as much work as we could on the place during the summer of 1985. We moved Lisa’s king-size waterbed, complete with a dome that held a stereo and television and with mirrors on the sides, into our bedroom. That monstrosity left little room for anything else. We may have been living in a shack, but we thought we were sleeping like royalty. We had our own place, we were still close to our family, Lisa was still working at the bank, and I was working for Duck Commander. Life was good.
LISA: On our first anniversary, in November 1985, I discovered I was pregnant with our first child, due in May 1986. We were so excited! I did not know much about babies but knew Granny and Miss Kay would teach me how to care for a child.
Al mentioned earlier in this chapter that we had typical newlywed challenges. One of those challenges, which we faced from the very beginning of our marriage, was that my bank job meant I needed to live by a certain schedule and structure. I had to get up every morning and be at work at a certain time. When I got home, I had to do whatever needed to be done around the house, and I had to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
Al, on the other hand, had no such boundaries. He worked for Phil, and I’m not even sure I would call their work hours a real schedule. They definitely worked, and worked hard, because they were building what has now become a duck-call empire, but they were not rigid about when they worked or how they got their jobs done. Phil’s philosophy was, “If you’re hungry, eat. If you’re sleepy, take a nap. Just get the job done!” Miss Kay handled the administrative duties, while Phil and Al focused on making and selling duck calls. Al was free to do many of the things he had done before we married, and that didn’t bother me much in our early days. But when we found out we were expecting a baby, I wanted him to be home more to help around the house and to pay more attention to me.
Al now says he was a young husband trying to live the single life and that he was responsible for the fact that we violated so many aspects of the biblical concept of severance. He admits he was selfish and did not handle this situation the right way. As a result, I allowed resentment to creep into my heart and thought more than a few times, He just married me for sex.
We argued about how he spent his time more than anything else, but not constantly. We had a lot of happy times, punctuated occasionally with tense moments. Growing up in my family, I had seen people argue and yell when they were not happy with each other, so I yelled at Al when I was unhappy with him. I did not know how to have a healthy disagreement or a reasonable conversation, nor did he. We fought and raised our voices more than was necessary and made the mistake of going to bed angry too many times, but overall, we still felt good about our marriage and looked forward to having a happy, healthy baby.
AL: Lisa’s pregnancy progressed normally, and we were excited to start our Lamaze classes in March 1986, about two months before Lisa’s due date. On a Friday night, February 28, she began having indigestion and back pain. We didn’t know what was going on, so she just tolerated the discomfort, thinking maybe it was related to something she ate or to false labor pains. By Sunday morning, March 2, we knew she was hurting way too badly. Something was wrong, and we needed to go to the hospital.
We arrived at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe between six and seven A.M. Lisa had only gained about ten pounds, and the nurse who checked us in said to her, “What are you doing here? You don’t even look like you’re pregnant.” She didn’t even call the doctor right away.
Before long, they took Lisa to examine her while I sat in a waiting room alone. My parents were at home getting ready for church and waiting to hear from me whether they needed to come to the hospital or not. They did!
About nine A.M. Lisa’s doctor found me and asked, “Al, are you ready to have a baby?” I could hardly believe what he had said. A baby? Right then?
There was no stopping the delivery. Lisa had progressed too far, even though she was only twenty-nine weeks pregnant. All those pains she had been having over the weekend were contractions, and we didn’t know it.
“There will be complications,” the doctor told me. “Neonatal ICU right away,” he said. “Fifty-fifty chance of survival.” The words echoed through my head. I had never been so frightened in my life.
I was twenty-one years old, all alone in a hospital. In total shock, trying to process everything the doctor had said, I walked to the nearest pay phone to call my parents and Lisa’s parents to ask them to come to the hospital.
Before any family had arrived, Elizabeth Anna Robertson was born at 10:10 A.M. that Sunday morning. She was twelve inches long and weighed only about one pound, fifteen ounces at birth. After the intensity of the situation began to calm down, my inner outdoorsman took over and I thought, I have caught fish bigger than this!
The doctors and nurses immediately put Anna on a ventilator because she was so tiny. Lisa was in recovery and our parents weren’t there, so I walked alone and dazed to the neonatal intensive care unit to see my new daughter.