His son was born in 1957 at the Misericordia Hospital in Winnipeg, before men had to start watching their wives give birth. Asked about it years later, Ben Grafton replied, “What’s a man to do in a place like that, except grow all bug-eyed and wobbly and make a shining fool of himself?”
On that windless January night, Ben Grafton didn’t enter the delivery room. He didn’t consider it. He waited until Louise was “finished,” poked his head in the door and shouted “atta way Lulu!” Wearing a blue woollen cap that stopped short of his huge brown ears, he followed two nurses who took the infant to the nursery. Ben Grafton was not invited. Nor was he self-conscious. He was a forty-three-year-old railroad porter who had coped with all sorts of nonsense in the past and had long stopped wondering what people thought of his being this or that. They turned to tell him he couldn’t stay in the nursery. He said he wanted to look at his little man.
“So cute, this little baby,” one nurse cooed, turning the brown face toward Ben.
Ben touched a tiny cheek. He didn’t understand all this hospital nonsense. Why couldn’t the nurses just leave the boy with his mother? Or with him? But he wasn’t going to raise a ruckus. He was going to take it calm and easy. But then something happened. The nurse crossed the baby. With her thumb. She actually touched his forehead and made a sign of the cross. Then she started mumbling a prayer. “Hey,” Ben said.
The nurse continued.
“No praying.” Gently, but firmly, Ben poked the woman in the ribs.
She turned on him, eyebrows raised. “Please,” she hissed.
“No praying,” Ben repeated.
The woman’s jaw dropped. The nurse beside her stared at Ben.
“That’s right,” Ben said, eyeballing both of them. “This little man is a Grafton. And Graftons don’t go in for devils and angels and heaven and hell. This little man will believe in humanity. Humanity and activism. You can leave him here till his mother wakes up but I don’t want any more of those rituals. Is that clear?”
The praying nurse nodded, the other one blinked. Neither spoke. They lay the baby in his bassinet. Ben backed out of the nursery but watched through the window. He stayed there for an hour or so. He had some thinking to do. Thinking about a name. A good one. This child was destined for great things. No ordinary name would do.