While her little sister Gamma does outrageous things and gets blogged about, Beta quietly goes about her business of getting straight A’s in school, rowing on a gold medal-winning team, and other things. She has been in the local paper often. But I must mention her here, too, so you don’t think I neglect her in favor of Gamma.

Beta was born twelve-and-a-half years ago in Tokyo, ten weeks premature. She weighed 1272 grams, a little over two and a half pounds. She was 38 centimeters long. The doctor told me there was a good chance she would grow up normal, although there was of course an increased danger of learning disabilities, hyperactivity, and other problems. As he told me this, a little girl with no fingers and a blank look on her face rolled past in a walker. Her parents had abandoned her and she lived at the hospital.

I asked him when I could touch Beta. He said right now if you want. So I put my finger into her hand and she grasped it, instinctively as babies do. She was yellow with jaundice and hooked up to an IV and to several monitors and had a feeding tube down her nose, but was breathing on her own. I had never seen fingers that small, yet they worked perfectly.

The doctor then dragged me back out, sensing that I was about to cry, and not wanting me to start a chain reaction and make all the dozens of babies there in the preemie ward cry, too.

Back then, 12 years ago, they were regularly saving babies in the 800-1000 gram range, I think. Today, even 400-600 gram babies have a chance. That really changed my mind on medical technology.

Beta: “I’m thinking of studying philosophy, mom and dad.”
Miguel: “Well, be sure and study art too, so you have something to fall back on in case the philosophy gig doesn’t work out.”

I almost drowned Beta the day we took her home, giving her a bath. Her face went into the suds as I washed her back, and she stopped breathing. Another time, I nearly killed the two of us by falling asleep with a pot of plastic bottles sterilizing on the gas stove. All the water boiled out, the bottles melted and burned. I woke up to a house full of smoke.

It was hard to get her to sleep, as a baby. I walked back and forth with her, counting my steps. Thousands of paces, between two rooms in a house on the outskirts of Tokyo. Miles every night. It often took hours. Sometimes I got so frustrated that I hit myself, because hitting a wall wasn’t enough. Then, when she finally fell asleep, I’d spend the rest of the night checking her, making sure she was still breathing. As if she had some sort of built-in baby radar, which I suspect she did, she started sleeping through nights on the day that I would have finally died or at least lost my mind if I didn’t get some sleep. She was about a year or 18 months old.

Beta: “Look, a few weeks ago I designed this plaid dress with fringe, cut at an angle, and now…”
Miguel: “…Plaid, angles and fringe are all *in*.”

I don’t remember what her first word was. I do remember the day she learned to ride a bike; that’s the day I decided she was my hero. She just didn’t give up. She crashed repeatedly and got gravel in her hands and knees. She cried. But she got back on the bike every single time until she finally could ride it. She reminded me of a bus, and still does. When she wants to do something, she does it, and nothing can stop her. She does it all herself, too. I just hold the bike while she climbs on.

There is another memory of picking her up at nursery school. A little boy was bothering her. She stopped and cocked her arm to take a swing. He covered his crotch with both hands, yelling, “not in the eggs!!” because testicles are called eggs here. That made me think she’ll be okay, because boys phear her.

Last Friday we drove to the provincial harp competition, about an hour or so away from where we live, in a big castle. She is 12 now, but as she slept that night in our room, I checked to make sure she was still breathing before going to sleep myself.

I took notes there, including a detailed description of our continental breakfast, but we’ll skip that. After breakfast Beta took off for a few minutes. When she returned she said she had registered herself for the competition, something parents usually do. I thought of the experts who say that children will not be independent if you let them sleep in the “big bed”. Beta slept in the big bed often until she was 4, and still does sometimes.

Her harp teacher and I were far more excited than she was, although Beta surprised herself by getting nervous a few minutes before she had to play.

Several children roughly her age competed that day, in about three different classes, including a girl whom I (but not Beta) considers Beta’s nemesis. The girl comes from a harp family, where all the girls are trained rigorously. They all wore lipstick and were dolled up. Before the girl went up to play, her mother whispered to her vehemently, “concentrate!” She played with exaggerated, dramatic hand movements and a tortured, miserable expression on her face, not especially musically in my opinion, and at the limits of her artistic abilities, yet flawlessly and she got a first prize.

I watched the judges. They listened intently for the first song the children played, then their attention wandered – they leaned back in their seats and looked around or thought about lunch.

Then it was finally – after months of practicing – Beta’s turn. She walked up to the harp with a serious expression on her face, was introduced, sat down and played, with the weight and momentum of an engine block. No fancy hand movements, but no tortured facial expression either, just perfect technique. Because she was nervous, she made several mistakes, but because she is a pro she just played through them; she didn’t allow them to rattle her like kids often do. She was a bus again.

They gave her a second prize, which was fair, but they were very encouraging in the talk after the competition. I was relieved it was over. In her shoes, I would be swearing “never again”. But she wants to do it again at the next competition, in two years.

The end.