Leonel Karl Nicolai Suendermann-Oeft
My dear friends,
Most of you will remember the adventurous tour on New York's subway system during Friday's rush hour
to get to the Upper East Side where Kara-Lailach (KL) saw the day of light two years ago. In the
course of the time thereafter, we learned that KL does not have much in common with the shininess of
this neighborhood and hardly ever made it to this fancy place (except for the Met and one or two
other museums and a traffic jam on the FDR drive).
When we learned about Christiane's fourth pregnancy and that it ought to be our first son, we
understood that it was time for a contrast program. The hospital closest to our residence turned
out to be Maimonides Medical Center known to be the hospital with the most children delivered in the
entire State of New York (almost 30 per day). It would take us only 10 minutes by car rather than
one hour on the subway, and it would be in the midst of grungy Brooklyn rather than snobby
Manhattan.
While the calculated due date was September 11, contractions began already today, on the last day of
August around nine thirty. After having called up a friend to give us a hand with the girls, we
took the car to be at the hospital around eleven. While getting there was really easy, there turned
to be out a problem. Where do we get rid of the car? No parking whatsoever anywhere near
Maimonides. After thirty minutes cruising, we found a nice spot a block from the main entrance,
but, in the meantime, labor had become so heavy that Christiane could not move anymore, so, I
mentally got prepared to deliver by myself in the car. In a moment of enlightenment, we decided
against this approach and took the car to the main entrance where a dozen red signs indicated that
we were about to commit a blood sin by parking right in front of the main door.
Once inside, I forgot about the car and payed full attention to what really mattered: The well-
being of mother and child. While my telephone was constantly ringing with messages from family
members and other professionals (such as my mother-in-law that almost got lost on the JFK airport
trying to catch a cab), I assisted the midwife comforting and stimulating Christiane at the same
time.
An hour later, between two contractions, I slipped out of the labor room to see whether the car had
already been hauled off, and, to my infinite surprise, it had not even received a ticket at that
time. So, I used the opportunity, to move the car into a nearby parking house. The first deck
appeared to be extremely crowded, so, I ascended to the second which looked the same. After going
all the way to the tenth deck without seeing anything else than double-parked cars standing in
totally forbidden areas in front of doors, other cars, driveways, and so forth I felt confident
leaving ours behind on a yellow painted area without even bothering to lock since the midwife had
said that the baby could crawl out of the birth channel every instant.
Luckily I was back in time to serve as a victim for Christiane suffering a lot of pain during the
two or three last contractions at which she almost strangled me searching for something to hold on
to. One minute later, at 1:40 PM, our son slipped out of his mother's belly and, since then, has
given us so much pleasure as if he was with us an entire year already.
Looking very much like his sisters when they were born, with long dark curly hair and a weight right
in the middle of KL (pi kg) and Hannah (3.33333333333333 kg) we gave him the following name
(Christiane and I just hung up the phone after settling on the final version):
Leonel Karl Nicolai Suendermann-Oeft
Leonel is an altered form of the first name of Lyonel Feininger who was one of the most important
Bauhaus masters. Being born in New York and having died there, he was working many years in East-
German cities such as Weimar, Erfurt, Dessau, and Berlin, being the link between our origin and our
son's. The name's alteration became necessary due to family constraints indicating that the
pronunciation of Lyonel would be too similar to his 12-year-older cousin Linus's. Positive aspect
of this alteration is that the name is almost a palindrome (it becomes Lenoel read the other way
around).
Karl is the link to his New-York-born (and aforementioned) sister KL whose name Kara came from the
protagonist of several of Dr. Karl May's novels, probably the most productive and well-educated
kleptomaniac author. Many of his works were written in Dresden's jail, and his doctor honoris causa
title was acquired by purchase.
Nicolai is finally the three-syllable pendant expressing the tight relation to the 18 days earlier
(2009-08-13 vs. 2009-08-31) born Cousin Niki, sister of the aforementioned Linus. Three syllables
with a predefined stress pattern was important to make the full name a seven-syllable trochee as
done for two of his sisters:
'Hannah 'Eu'lali'a
'Kara-'Lailach 'Igo'ne
'Leo'nel Karl 'Nico'lai
Very truly yours,
David
P.S.
Some of you may complain that this whole story was more about our car than about the newborn, so let
me elaborate a little more on this topic.
When we had enjoyed Leonel's presence for an hour or two and Christiane had been released to her room
of 100 sqft that she was to share with an Indian woman whose entire family of about ten people spent
the day at the hospital, I left to pick our family up to top it all off. Back on the tenth floor of
the parking house I wondered why the car's security system did not respond to me pressing the green
button. The same silence came from the starter. Well, did I switch off the lights before I left at
all? Probably not. Do not blame me for that--you remember I had to rush back to the labor room to
be on time for getting the neck broken. So, most of my "personal day's" remainder I spent organizing
transportation of my daughters and mother-in-law and, more importantly, getting the car fixed with
the friendly help of my neighbors, several hospital and parking house staff members, and passers-by.
After dusk, the engine started working again just in time for me to get back home to write these e-
mails.
