A Life of Words

Sixty-three years ago this week, a smart, handsome, athletic teenager named Crys Workman turned 17. He and his family were from Huntington, West Virginia, but on his birthday Feb. 28, 1961, Crys was near the end of several months living in nearby Ironton, Ohio, where he attended school and played basketball as a junior for the Ironton High Tigers. His 39-year-old pregnant, divorced mother Betty, 13-year-old brother Robin and 6-year-old sister Terry had also been with Crys in Ironton for a few months in 1960 before moving back to Huntington that fall.

On Crys’s 17th birthday, Betty didn’t get to celebrate with her oldest child and his siblings. Instead, she was at Cabell Huntington Hospital going through five hours of labor before giving birth to her fourth child, a boy who arrived at 5:15 that Tuesday afternoon.

The baby was me, and a few days later I went home to 1221 Kanawha Terrace in Huntington with Minnesota native Clark Christlieb and his Panamanian wife Olga, who already had another adopted son, 18-month-old Isaac.

When 17-year-old Crys moved back home to Huntington the following month and asked his mother Betty what had become of the baby she’d been carrying, she gave him an answer that he took to mean I’d died during childbirth. What else could a teen make of the words “I lost the baby”? But in our mother’s heart, she had lost her baby just as surely as if I had not survived.

When I found my three full sibs in June 2005, though deeply disheartened to learn that Betty had died of lung cancer at 71 in 1992, I was stunned but thrilled to find out that my oldest “new” sibling and I shared a birthday.

After my family traveled to the Denver area to meet Crys and sister Terry and their families that summer, then later our brother Robin (who passed away in 2009), I flew up again the following February for a first-ever celebration together of Crys’s and my shared birthday. I did the same in 2018 and wish we’d been able to make it more of a routine since we became a family.

So here we are in 2024, with another double birthday upon us. On Wednesday, Crys will hit his milestone 80th birthday while I’ll turn 63. I have a plane ticket to fly to Denver out of Dallas Love Field after work Tuesday evening and have been anticipating this for months.

However … our 19-year-old tested positive for COVID on Saturday, so my trip is in limbo. We’re taking every precaution — isolation for our sick teen, masking for everyone else, hand-washing, bleaching, you name it — in hopes that no one else gets sick. I’ve told my family in Colorado that I’ll take a COVID test Tuesday, but even if it’s negative, they should be the ones to decide if they feel comfortable with my visiting. I sure don’t want to take a chance on getting anyone in my birth family sick as we celebrate the birthday brothers.

So, everyone please cross your fingers for us. And while you’re at it, please wish my wonderful big brother Crys a happy 80th birthday.

Happy birthday, Crystal Edward Workman! We all love you very much! ☺️🎉❤️